    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (1999, Book II)]
    [August 13, 1999]
    [Page 1442]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Statement on the Anniversary of the Death of Mickey Leland
    August 13, 1999

        Hillary and I would like to mark a sad occasion in our Nation's
    history, the death of Representative Mickey Leland (D-TX). Ten years ago
    this week, while on a hunger mission to Gambela, Ethiopia,
    Representative Leland died in a plane crash. A six-term Member of
    Congress, former chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus and
    cofounder and chair of the House Select Committee on Hunger, he was
    instrumental in bringing the issues of poverty and hunger to our
    Nation's consciousness. Because of his work, the plight of poverty was
    eased around the world, in Africa, the countries of the former Soviet
    Union, and within the United States.
        Representative Leland's hallmark legislation, the Africa Famine
    Relief and Recovery Act of 1985, provided $800 million in food aid and
    humanitarian relief supplies to the poverty-stricken continent. One of
    his quotes effectively illustrates the human rights and moral aspects of
    the hunger fight: ``I cannot get used to hunger and desperate poverty in
    our plentiful land. There is no reason for it. There is no excuse for
    it, and it is time that we as a nation put an end to it.'' This struggle
    to make economic prosperity inclusive of more of our population has
    become a focus of the work of my administration. In another example of
    his foresight, Leland was an outspoken critic of violence on television
    long before it became the national issue that it is today.
        The work of Mickey Leland must go on, and I would like to thank
    those individuals and organizations working to carry out his legacy. We
    must never forget Mickey Leland, the pressing issues for which he
    worked, the voiceless poor for whom he spoke, and the global principles
    for which he lived.