    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1999, Book I)]
    [January 18, 1999]
    [Pages 58-59]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    [[Page 58]]

    Remarks to AmeriCorps Volunteers
    January 18, 1999

        The President. Thank you very much. Good afternoon, everyone.
        Audience members. Good afternoon.
        The President. First of all, I'd like to say that I am very grateful
    to be here at Regency House with all of you. I want to thank the
    residency council for making us feel welcome--Sarah Beaner, Kenneth Brown, and others.
        I want to say to the members of the press here--you know, the press,
    they all think that we're all on automatic, because they give us little
    notes here to read about every place we go. But I think it would be
    interesting for you to know the note I got on Regency House here: Sarah
    Beaner is the president of the residency
    council; Kenneth Brown is the past president
    and is now serving as the vice president--not such a bad idea.
    [Laughter] Regency House has 157 tenants. The tenant population is made
    up of seniors and the disabled. They are all current in their rent.
    [Laughter] Good for you; that's great.
        Let me say to the mayor and
    Councilmember Patterson and Delegate
    Norton, I am honored to be here to
    participate in Martin Luther King Day as a day of service, as provided
    by law and in the spirit of what Dr. King said. And I am proud that I
    now live in a city with truly outstanding leadership. Eleanor Holmes
    Norton has been my friend for a very long time and is one of the most
    remarkable women in any leadership capacity of any kind in the United
    States. DC is fortunate to have her.
        The mayor, in his former life, was
    actually a member of our administration in the Agriculture Department.
    And you know, it didn't really offend me that we'd already torn the wall
    down by the time he showed up today--[laughter]--because he's working
    hard, and he's got a lot of things to do. And I feel good about what
    he's going to achieve. And Mr. Mayor, you just stay on the job, and I'll
    tear a wall down for you any day you want, any time, any way, and I
    thank you.
        I want to thank David Gilmore of the DC
    Housing Authority; and my great member of the White House staff Ben
    Johnson, who did used to be a former
    director of DC Public Housing; the others whom the Vice President
    mentioned with AmeriCorps, Deb Jospin, John
    Gomperts. But mostly I want to thank these
    young volunteers behind me.
        Near the end of Dr. King's life, he envisioned a partnership in
    America across racial lines. He could never have imagined that America
    would become so diverse as it is today. But AmeriCorps, it seems to me,
    is the living, breathing embodiment of the way Martin Luther King
    thought all of America ought to work. And that's what I wanted to do
    when we established it.
        You might be interested to know that in only 4 years, since we set
    AmeriCorps up and got it going, more than 100,000 volunteers have joined
    AmeriCorps. It took the Peace Corps 20 years to reach that milestone.
    And they have done unbelievable things to make America a better place,
    helping to deal with natural emergencies, helping to build houses,
    helping to tutor children, helping to immunize children, working in
    1,000 communities across this country.
        And if you just look at these young people standing behind me, you
    know they come from all different parts of America; they come from all
    different backgrounds; they had different kind of reasons for joining
    AmeriCorps; they came here after different points of experience in their
    lives. And I'm very, very proud of them, and I thank them.
        You should know that today more than 100,000 volunteers are out
    there keeping Dr. King's dream alive. AmeriCorps members, seniors,
    students, soldiers are rehabilitating buildings, painting schools,
    cleaning neighborhoods, reading to children. They are doing what Dr.
    King would want us to do.
        I also want to mention one other thing. The Vice President talked
    about the need to continue to fight discrimination. Dr. King believed
    that every American, regardless of race, religion, or background, should
    be able to live in a home without discrimination. Today, on this Martin
    Luther King Day, I am pleased to announce the largest settlement in
    history in a lending discrimination--for home lending.
        Let me tell you about it; it will affect a lot of people's lives.
    Thanks to the efforts of the

    [[Page 59]]

    Department of Housing and Urban Development under the leadership of
    Secretary Cuomo, the Columbia National
    Mortgage Company will offer--listen to this--$6.5 billion in home
    mortgages and extra effort to help 78,000 minority and low and moderate
    income families unlock the door to homeownership. This settlement was
    made under the Fair Housing Act, which Congress passed just 6 days--just
    6 days--after Dr. King was killed. He had worked for years to outlaw
    discrimination in housing, and many who voted for the measure said they
    did it in tribute to him. So here all these years later--31 years later,
    to be exact--we're proud that it's happened on Dr. King's national
    holiday.
        Now let me just say one final thing. Yesterday, in the church that
    Hillary and I attend, they observed Dr. King's birthday with some
    special music. They had a wonderful singer from the Army Chorus. They
    did a lot, but one of the songs they sang that I love so well was one of
    Martin Luther King's favorite hymns, and it embodies what we are doing
    here today. The first line of the hymn is, ``If I can help somebody,''
    and the last line is, ``then my living will not be in vain.''
        All these people are here not only because they want to help you but
    because their lives are richer because of it. And we're all learning and
    growing. And besides that, as the press pointed out, it did the Vice
    President and me a lot of good to pick up
    those hammers and crowbars and tear something down. [Laughter] You know,
    we do this desk work all the time and we do this word work all the time,
    and there's not always a beginning, a middle, and an end. There was a
    beginning to that wall, a middle, and it is no longer; it is over.
    [Laughter] So we are very grateful that you gave us the chance to be
    part of this today, and we thank you.
        Again I want to say, I hope all across America people will hear
    this. Look at these young people; they're here with you. They're getting
    something out of this, too. Their lives will be richer and better. They
    will be wiser sooner. They will be more sensitive and more understanding
    more quickly in their lives because of the experience they've had here
    and the other experiences in AmeriCorps. Every American needs to serve.
    And remember what Dr. King said: Everyone can be great, because everyone
    can serve.
        Thank you, and God bless you.
        Now, I know we're done, but I want to say a special word of
    recognition to Melody Scales and Beth
    McCarthy of AmeriCorps who worked with me, and
    to Donald Stokes, who is a resident here. I'd
    like for them to come up and be recognized, since they worked with the
    Vice President and me. Come on up here. [Applause] This is our crew, and
    if you need a wall torn down, you couldn't do better than this.

    Note: The President spoke at 1:53 p.m. at Regency House. In his remarks,
    he referred to Mayor Anthony A. Williams and Ward 3 Councilmember Kathy
    Patterson of Washington, DC. The Martin Luther King, Jr., Federal
    Holiday proclamation of January 15 is listed in Appendix D at the end of
    this volume.