[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 29, Number 40 (Monday, October 11, 1993)]
[Pages 2015-2016]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

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Proclamation 6605--National Disability Employment Awareness Month, 1993

 October 6, 1993

By the President of the United States

of America

A Proclamation

    The United States has long been a champion of the civil rights of 
individuals, and it is only natural that we now serve in the forefront 
of efforts to ensure equal opportunity for persons with disabilities. 
Inspired by the enactment of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) 
on July 26, 1990, other nations have begun to reexamine the challenges 
faced by their citizens with disabilities. The ADA, which prohibits 
discrimination in employment, public accommodations, government 
services, transportation, and communications, provides a practical model 
for people everywhere to ensure that individuals with disabilities will 
not be excluded from

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the social, cultural, and economic mainstream.
    Together we have begun shifting disability policy in America from 
exclusion to inclusion; from dependence to independence; from 
paternalism to empowerment. And we have made a firm commitment--a 
national pledge of civil rights for people with disabilities--to enforce 
the Americans with Disabilities Act. We cannot be satisfied until all 
citizens with disabilities receive equal treatment under the law, 
whether in the workplace, in schools, in government, or in the courts. 
We will not be satisfied as a Nation until we have fully implemented the 
laws that offer equal opportunity for Americans with disabilities, 
including the ADA and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.
    We do not have a single person to waste. Citizens with disabilities 
want to lead full, independent, and productive lives. They want to work; 
they want to pay their fair share of taxes; they want to be self-
supporting citizens. America must enable the 43 million talented 
Americans with disabilities to contribute by offering them the 
individualized training and education we offer everyone else.
    Our Nation can ill afford to waste this vast and only partially 
tapped source of knowledge, skills, and talent. In addition to being 
costly--over $300 billion is expended annually at the Federal, State, 
and local levels to financially support potentially independent 
individuals--this waste of human ability cannot be reconciled with our 
tradition of individual dignity, self-reliance, and empowerment. As we 
work to achieve thorough and harmonious implementation of the Americans 
with Disabilities Act, we will open the doors of opportunity for 
millions of people, thereby expanding, not only the ranks of the 
employed, but also the ranks of consumers. These individuals and their 
families will thus be able to pursue the real American Dream.
    I congratulate the small business and industry leaders, labor 
leaders, and community leaders from all walks of life who are working 
together to implement the ADA and the Rehabilitation Act, and I commit 
the resources and cooperation of the Federal Government toward that 
effort. Our ongoing progress attests to the fundamental vitality and 
openness of our free enterprise system and to our abiding commitment to 
civil rights for all. Every American needs a chance to contribute. Our 
work is far from finished. America needs the continued leadership of 
every citizen to fulfill the promise of the Americans with Disabilities 
Act and related laws.
    The Congress, by joint resolution approved August 11, 1945, as 
amended (36 U.S.C. 155) has called for the designation of October of 
each year as ``National Disability Employment Awareness Month.'' This 
month is a special time for all Americans to recognize the tremendous 
potential of citizens with disabilities and to renew our commitment to 
full inclusion and equal opportunity for them, as for every citizen.
    Now, Therefore, I, William J. Clinton, President of the United 
States of America, do hereby proclaim October 1993 as National 
Disability Employment Awareness Month. I call on all Americans to 
observe this month with appropriate programs and activities that affirm 
our determination to fulfill both the letter and the spirit of the 
Americans with Disabilities Act.
    In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this sixth day of 
October, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and ninety-three, and 
of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and 
eighteenth.
                                            William J. Clinton

[Filed with the Office of the Federal Register, 4:29 p.m., October 6, 
1993]

Note: This proclamation was published in the Federal Register on October 
8.