    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000, Book I)]
    [February 16, 2000]
    [Pages 269-273]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher
    Education Dinner
    February 16, 2000

        Thank you very much. Dr. McClure, my
    mother is up in heaven smiling at that introduction. And she's probably
    the only person who heard it who believes every word of it. [Laughter]
    But I liked it, and I thank you. [Laughter]
        I thank you so much, all of you, for welcoming me. To your chair-
    elect, Joann Boyd-Scotland, who sat with
    me for a few moments; your CEO, my long-time friend Dr. Henry
    Ponder; Dr. Earl Richardson, who welcomed me to Morgan State not too many years ago,
    and then Vice President Gore yesterday; to
    Dr. Iris Ish and all the members of my Board of
    Advisors on Historically Black Colleges and Universities; to my
    president, the Arkansas Baptist College president, Dr. William
    Keaton, my long-time friend.
        I want to also have a special word of acknowledgement to your vice
    president, Dr. Wilma Roscoe. Her daughter,
    Jena, works in the White

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    House; that's really why I'm here tonight, to preserve peace in the
    family. [Laughter]
        I want to thank all the White House members who are here: the
    Director of our Office of Public Liaison, Mary Beth Cahill; and Ben Johnson, who
    has done a wonderful job for us. I know he spoke here earlier today. I
    also would like to thank Catherine LeBlanc, who is Executive Director of our Initiative on
    Historically Black Colleges and Universities. And I congratulate all the
    alumni award winners here tonight.
        When Dr. McClure was saying his kind words, what I wanted to say
    was, I feel like the luckiest person alive, that at this moment in
    history I was fortunate enough to be given a chance to serve as
    President and to focus the attention of the Nation on the future, on
    some old-fashioned ideas: everybody counts; everybody ought to have a
    chance; everybody's got a role to play; we all do better when we help
    each other. The work I have done to build one America for a new century
    was a joy every day. Even on the darkest days, the fact that I had this
    job to do for you and for our children and our children's children made
    this a joy.
        And I think of all you have done to make the last 7 years possible.
    Think about what a different country America would be today had it not
    been for the institutions all of you represent. Think about what a
    different administration I would have had. We have Alexis
    Herman, the Secretary of Labor, graduate of
    Xavier. Togo West, the Secretary of
    Veterans Affairs; Bob Nash--the hardest job in the
    White House--he handles my appointments. I get the credit when they get
    it; he takes the blame when they don't. [Laughter] And Judith
    Winston, who ran our One America
    initiative when I put my White House committee together on race. All
    graduated from Howard. Dr. David Satcher,
    from Morehouse; Terry Edmonds, my chief
    speechwriter, from Morgan State.
        But if you think about this economy we have, which is not only the
    longest expansion in history but has given us the lowest African-
    American unemployment rate ever recorded and the lowest poverty rate in
    20 years and the lowest female unemployment rate in 40 years--that would
    not have happened if it hadn't been for the educational opportunities
    provided by the people in this room and their forebears, and you should
    be very, very proud of that.
        I was very glad to be invited to come by here and to be able to redo
    our schedule so I could come, because I wanted to make one simple point
    to you. Everybody knows how important your institutions were to 20th
    century America. I want everybody to know how important your
    institutions will be to 21st century America.
        A third of all the undergraduate and advanced degrees awarded to
    African-Americans are awarded by your institutions. I want America to
    know that and to know what a vital role you play in building your
    communities, nurturing new businesses, and revitalizing neighborhoods,
    as Howard is doing here in our hometown of Washington. I want America to
    know about your enormous contributions to research. I want every
    American to know that last November Tennessee State astronomers made the
    world's first direct detection of a planet orbiting another star.
        We've done what we could to play our role. The Vice President and I
    have worked hard to be good partners to you. I told Earl, Al Gore was so happy
    that he got to go to Morgan State yesterday, because when I got to go to
    Morgan State to give a commencement address, to talk about, of all
    things, science and technology--not him, I got to talk about that--he
    was so jealous. [Laughter] And I just told him, I said, ``It won't be
    long before nobody pulls rank on you anymore, but I'm going there.'' And
    he got to go yesterday.
        We want people to know what's going on. And we want you to be able
    to define a mission for the 21st century that will help to create
    opportunity for every responsible American. We now have 30 agencies in
    our Government all singing out of the same hymnal, working for you, to
    help you reach your goals and your aspirations. The budget I just
    submitted to Congress includes almost a 40 percent increase in HBCU
    funding, including the new dual degree program Secretary Riley talked about yesterday.
        I want to ask you now to think beyond that. In the State of the
    Union, I said that I thought America should be proud of what we had done
    together these last 7 years, but not satisfied. There's a big
    difference. We should remember that we got to where we are as a country
    with the right vision and the right values and an awful lot of effort--
    an awful lot of effort. All of you know, because of the work you do,
    that the one constant of the time in which we live is change; that there
    is an inherent dynamism in this moment which rewards people who are

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    educated, who work hard, who can think and create, and punishes the
    sluggards mercilessly.
        And I don't want to see our country become a sluggard in 2000 just
    because we're feeling good about ourselves. I don't want to see
    Washington become a sluggard in 2000 just because there's an election on
    the horizon that will occupy the headlines, because what is rewarded is
    action. And so I ask you to help me convince our country and our
    Congress that this may be an election year, but it's still got to be an
    action year.
        We have an action agenda. You know, I think we can really say--with
    the HOPE scholarships, with the direct student loan program, with a
    million work-study positions, with the increases in the Pell grants--
    we've opened the doors of at least 2 years of college now to every
    American who will work for it. But it's time to open the doors of
    college for 4 years to every American who will work for it.
        That's why we want to raise the Pell grant again. That's why I want
    to make college tuition tax deductible up to $10,000, and I want to do
    it in a progressive way so that whether the family is in the 15 percent
    income tax bracket or the 28 percent income tax bracket, they get a 28
    percent tax deduction for college tuition. This can make a huge
    difference to help children stay in school.
        One of the things that bothers me most is that since 1993 we have a
    10 percent increase in the percentage of our high school graduates going
    on to college. A couple years ago, for the first time in history, the
    percentage of African-Americans graduating from high school on time was
    almost identical to the white majority. The percentage going on to
    college has significantly increased. But the dropout rate is still way
    too high.
        You wait till this census comes in. And it will give you a profile
    of the American people and their incomes and their prospects. And what
    it will show is just what the 1990 census showed, but more so: People
    with an education do well; people without an education work harder for
    less. We've got to get these kids into college; we've got to keep them
    in college. And you have to help us, financially, academically, in every
    way. I have proposed some new college completion grants to try to help
    schools experiment with new strategies to keep young people in school
    within the TRIO program. I know that this is a big concern of yours.
    This is a big issue to America.
        I want you to help me convince the country and the Congress that we
    ought to bring economic opportunity to every area that hasn't seen it.
    We ought to increase the number of empowerment zones under the program
    the Vice President has headed so ably. We
    ought--in every poor neighborhood in America, an inner city, a rural
    area, an Indian reservation--we ought to give people the same tax
    incentives to invest there that we give them to invest overseas, in
    Latin America or Africa or Asia. I'm for helping Americans to invest
    overseas, but we ought to give them the same incentives to invest in
    poor areas here, where people are dying to go to work or start
    businesses or have a better future.
        I want you to help me convince the country and convince the Congress
    that there are still a lot people out there in poverty; that they ought
    to have access to jobs and education; and that even though we have 2
    million-plus fewer children in poverty, there are still too many. And as
    rich as we are now, as low as our unemployment rate is now, there is no
    excuse for any child in America living in poverty. And we ought to say
    as a goal, we're going to make sure that we increase the earned-income
    tax credit for working families; we're going to make sure that we
    increase child care support; we're going to do whatever it takes to make
    sure that every parent can succeed at home and work, and no child is
    raised in poverty. I want you to help me convince the Congress and the
    country that that is the right thing to do.
        The one thing you can play a big role in is making sure we close the
    digital divide--it's okay to clap for that, that's good. [Applause] I
    was so pleased to learn of your new agreement with Gateway to empower
    your students, your faculty, your alumni with a million affordable new
    computers; to put in place the E-commerce tools for improving distance
    learning, on-line admissions, registration, and financial aid. It's a
    good company, doing what I think we ought to do.
        I visited Gateway's offices in Belfast, Northern Ireland. I met with
    all their young employees who worked there. They had young people from
    seven, eight, nine different countries working in one office there,
    talking all over the world where they were selling these computers. And

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    Ted Waitt and the people at Gateway have decided
    that if they're trying to bring that kind of opportunity to the rest of
    the world, they ought to be closing the digital divide here at home. I
    applaud them, and I applaud you for working with them. We have to do
    more with that. There is so much we can do to help young people skip a
    generation of educational and economic development, in terms of time, if
    we close the digital divide.
        I ask you to help me persuade the Congress to give the biggest
    increase in civil rights enforcement in history--we still have actual
    problems with bigotry and discrimination out there--to enforce the equal
    pay laws; and to pass hate crimes legislation; to do things that will
    give us the tools to create one America.
        Let me just say this briefly in closing. I know you all agree with
    my agenda. I know you do, and I'm grateful for the support you've given
    us in everything we've worked on through the years together. But the
    truth is, you're feeling pretty good here tonight, too. Things are going
    pretty well at home, aren't they? Yes, you know some people in trouble,
    but more people are doing better. And so we're all feeling pretty good.
    The great test of our people in this age is what we do with our good
    feeling. How many times--anybody that's over 30 in this audience will
    identify with this--how many times in your life have you made a mistake
    not because things were going badly but because things were going well?
        The whole history of the civil rights movement is about people who
    were saints under fire. People'd burn crosses in their yards, throw
    rocks or bullets through the front window. Stand up and be counted.
    March down the street. We're commemorating Selma this year. We honor
    these people. But how many times have you made a mistake and failed, and
    your courage and your vision has failed you, not because you were under
    duress but because things were going so well you thought there were no
    consequences to taking your eye off the prize? And I want you to have a
    good time here tonight, but I want you to hear me about this.
        I thank you for acknowledging what I've tried to do with you for
    America. But being President should always be honor enough. If nobody
    ever did another thing for me in my life, and I spent the rest of my
    life doing for other people, I would never catch up, not ever. So what I
    want to say to you is, take a little time tonight while you're having
    fun at dinner and clapping for the award recipients and feeling pretty
    good about where you are and where your institutions are, but think
    about what you are going to do with this good fortune and what your
    country is.
        You know, you talked about me being a little boy in Hope. I'm
    talking to you now more as a citizen than as a President. I'm not
    running for anything, you know. [Laughter] And most days, I'm okay about
    it. [Laughter] And I think about the young people and how I've always
    said, don't stop thinking about tomorrow; keep your eyes on the future;
    always have a vision. But I also know that to understand today and
    tomorrow, you have to have some sense of what yesterday was like.
        This month when we celebrated the longest economic expansion in
    history, I did a little looking into, and thinking about, what was the
    longest economic expansion until this one. You know when it was?
    Nineteen sixty-one to 1968. Now, I remember what that was like. I
    remember in the beginning how full of hope we were when President
    Kennedy was elected. I remember when President Kennedy was assassinated,
    how heartbroken we were, but how we rallied as a country behind
    President Johnson.
        All these people that look back at the sixties and say American
    cynicism started when President Kennedy was assassinated are just wrong.
    That's not true. This country was heartbroken, but we stood up together,
    and we joined hands. And Lyndon Johnson provided great leadership, and
    he pulled us together. So in 1964, I'm graduating from high school into
    an America that was the nearest like this America. We had low
    unemployment, low inflation, high growth. And everybody thought as
    difficult as the civil rights problems were, they were going to be
    resolved in a peaceable manner, with this wizard in the White House and
    the votes in Congress, to lawfully give African-Americans what they were
    constitutionally entitled to. And all the while we would win the cold
    war against communism, and we would create the greatest society America
    had ever known. That's what I believed the night I graduated from high
    school.
        Two years later, we had riots in the streets, a half a million
    people in Vietnam; the country was beginning to be deeply divided. Two
    years after that, I graduated from college in this city, 2 days after
    Robert Kennedy was assassinated, 2 months and 4 days after Martin Luther
    King

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    was killed, 5 weeks after Lyndon Johnson said he couldn't see his way
    clear to run for President again. The streets were burning in
    Washington, DC and the country was broken and divided. And we decided a
    Presidential election on the politics of division, the so-called Silent
    Majority. You remember that? The Silent Majority was, ``There are two
    kinds of folks in America, the Silent Majority and the loud minority,
    and you're either `us' or `them.''' [Laughter] We can laugh about it.
    But I want you to hear me now. I'm not running for anything.
        I have waited 35 years and some months for my country to be in a
    position again to build the future of our dreams for all our children.
    We dare not blow this. Every one of you who can remember how we felt in
    those early days of hope--you don't know whether in your lifetime you'll
    get a third chance. America has a second chance to do it together, to
    build one America, to give all our kids a good education, to give health
    care to all our people, to lead the world to peace and freedom, to
    figure out how to live together across all the lines that divide us. We
    have a chance.
        And it's so easy to forget that it requires effort, because things
    are going well. When you go home tonight, before you put your head on
    the pillow, just remember where you were, if you're old as I am or just
    old enough to remember where you were the last time America thought
    everything was going to be all right, more or less automatically--it
    would be taken care of by then--and how quickly we lost it all.
        I have waited 35 years. You can take us where we need to go--in the
    heart of every boy and girl who wasn't alive back then, in the spirit as
    well as the mind. We can do it, but we've got to work at it.
        Thank you, and God bless you.

    Note: The President spoke at 7:52 p.m. in the International Ballroom at
    the Washington Hilton Hotel. In his remarks, he referred to Wesley C.
    McClure, chair, Joann R.G. Boyd-Scotland, chair-elect, Henry Ponder,
    president and chief executive officer, Earl S. Richardson, secretary,
    and Wilma Roscoe, vice president, National Association for Equal
    Opportunity in Higher Education; Lucile Ish, Vice-Chair, President's
    Board of Advisers on Historically Black Colleges and Universities; Jena
    Roscoe, Associate Director, White House Office of Public Liaison; J.
    Terry Edmonds, Assistant to the President and Director of Speechwriting;
    and Ted Waitt, chairman and chief executive officer, Gateway 2000, Inc.