[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 30, Number 38 (Monday, September 26, 1994)]
[Pages 1796-1799]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Dinner

September 17, 1994

    Thank you. Thank you so much, Cardiss Collins, for your 
introduction, your support, and your two decades in the United States 
Congress, making you the longest serving African-American woman in the 
history of the Congress. Congressman Payne, thank you for your 
leadership here and for so much that you do, but especially for 
cochairing, along with C. Payne Lucas, our mission to Rwanda to see the 
fine work done by the United States in that beleaguered land. And thank 
you, Congressman Mfume, for your brilliant leadership of the 
Congressional Black Caucus. It has been an honor and a privilege to work 
with you to move this country forward and to bring this country 
together.
    There are so many distinguished Americans here tonight. But I can't 
help acknowledging the presence here--and to say I am so glad to see her 
able to be here tonight--of Rosa Parks. Thank you, ma'am. I also want to 
say I'm a little jealous that I didn't see the rest of the program, also 
all the things

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for the young people, and especially Reverend Flake's sermon this 
morning. The Vice President came in this morning when we had our 
meeting, and he said, ``You know that verse in Ezekiel about the dry 
bones?'' And I said to him, I said, ``Can there be life in these dry 
bones?'' He said, ``Yes, that one. Floyd Flake just gave one of the 
three or four best sermons I ever heard in my entire life about that.'' 
So I would like a tape or a transcript next week, if I could.
    I want to congratulate you, too, on your message, embracing our 
youth for a new tomorrow. You know, when I ran for President, I did so 
out of a sense of obligation to the next generation. I often said in 
1992 I did not want my daughter to grow up in a country in which she was 
part of the first generation of Americans to do worse than her parents 
and in which her beloved land was coming apart when it ought to be 
coming together.
    The theme song of our campaign was ``Don't Stop Thinking About 
Tomorrow.'' In order to do that, this country needs a clear mission and 
a good spirit. Our mission clearly has been to strengthen our economy 
and to preserve our security, to empower our people to seize the 
opportunities the future offers, to rebuild our American sense of 
community, to find strength in all this diversity we have rather than 
division and weakness, to try to make our Government work for ordinary 
citizens again, not as a savior but as a sure partner, to try to summon 
Americans to the idea that we can do better and that we are doing 
better.
    Now, in just a year and a half or so, we have seen over 4 million 
jobs come into this economy, a 20 percent drop in the African-American 
unemployment rate. We have seen 3 years of reduction in our terrible 
national deficit in a row for the first time since Mr. Truman was 
President of the United States. We have seen investments in new 
technologies and dramatic increases in trade. And just a few days ago, a 
distinguished panel of international economists for the first time in 9 
years said that the United States was once again the number one 
productive economy in the entire world.
    We have begun the hard work of empowering our people, everything 
from increasing the quantity and quality of Head Start programs to 
apprenticeship programs for young people who don't go to college, to 
dramatic increases in the availability of lower interest college loans, 
to job training programs for those who lose their work.
    We have begun the work of rebuilding our community. By 1996 we 
should be able to immunize every child in America under the age of 2. We 
passed the family leave bill and gave 15 million working families just 
above the poverty line a tax break so that people could be successful 
workers and successful parents.
    We dealt with all aspects of the crime problem and tried to give our 
young people something to say yes to as well as something to say no to. 
We banned assault weapons against enormous odds, passed the Brady bill 
after 7 years of delay.
    We began to rebuild our communities and pull ourselves together. 
Just last week, we kicked off AmeriCorps, the national service program, 
with now 15,000 and soon to be 20,000 young Americans all over this 
country like this young lady here, Erika Lomax, who's a teacher in the 
Teach For America corps. We can revolutionize this country from the 
grassroots up if we just give more people like Kweisi was when he was 16 
or 18 or 20 something to do that is good and wholesome and pure and true 
that will lead to a better tomorrow. And we are making a beginning at 
that. Now our young people will be working in everything from helping 
our elderly people to be more secure, to improving our environment, to 
tutoring kids, to keeping our streets safer, to dealing in drug 
prevention and education and treatment programs.
    We passed the empowerment zone proposal, and we're about to finish 
the process of reviewing those. It's been the most remarkable thing I 
have ever seen, how communities have come together across racial and 
economic lines to try to find a way to get investment in jobs to those 
people who have been totally left behind in every economic recovery for 
the last 20 years. We are making a beginning at that.
    And I want to say a special word of thanks for one proposal to three 
of your members. Soon we will have ready for my signature the community 
development bank proposal, thanks in no small measure to Congressman

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Rush, Congressman Flake, and Congresswoman Waters. And I thank them for 
that.
    We're also trying to pull this country together in other ways, 
proving that an administration can be both diverse and excellent. One of 
the things I am proudest of is that as of this night, it has been my 
privilege as your President to appoint more than twice as many African-
American judges to the Federal bench than the last three Presidents 
combined and more than twice as many Hispanic judges to the Federal 
bench than the last three Presidents combined. The really important 
thing is that the American Bar Association has given ``well-qualified'' 
ratings to a higher percentage of this administration's appointments 
than in any of the last five Presidencies.
    I say that because unless we can find a way to go forward into the 
future together, all of our particular successes will not have the 
general result we want. Still it is so easy to see the glass is half-
empty instead of half-full. And it is the spirit that burns within each 
of us that tells us we can get up every day and do a little better. That 
really keeps this country going. Our Nation has always been made great 
because of the efforts of its people, the spirit of its people.
    Yesterday, Congressman Mfume and Congressman Rangel and others 
invited me over to the Capitol where we gave awards to a large number of 
African-American veterans of World War II. And I couldn't help thinking 
as I looked out at those fine people the extraordinary lengths to which 
some of them had to go simply to serve their country. The Tuskegee 
Airmen flew nearly 1,600 missions, and they were the only fighter group 
never to lose a bomber in Europe in World War II.
    Well, today we need all of our people, and we do not have a person 
to waste. And yes, we can do better. We must, and we will. But it is 
important to know that democracy is on the move in this country in no 
small measure because of the contributions of the members of the 
Congressional Black Caucus.
    Before I go, I have to say a few words about Haiti. As you know, I 
had looked forward to being here tonight in a more jovial mood. I even 
like to--I've gotten finally to the point in my life where I like to 
wear one of those tuxedos. When I used to complain about it, my mama 
used to tell me that I came from a family where she could still remember 
the first time anybody ever had a necktie. And I was not to complain 
about wearing a tuxedo; I should be proud to have the opportunity to do 
so. So I look forward to doing that sort of thing. And I always love to 
be with you. And there are hundreds of my friends here. But I came late 
and a little out of style because, as you might imagine, I have been 
preoccupied today with the events in Haiti and the preparations we have 
been making at the Pentagon.
    I just want to say a word or two about that and how it relates to 
everything I have said before. Just because the cold war is over does 
not mean the United States can withdraw from the world. Just because it 
is almost always not necessary to resort to force, and we must always do 
everything we can to avoid it, does not mean there are never 
circumstances in which it might be necessary.
    What I want to say to you tonight is this: Our security interests in 
the world are many and varied. We must first finish the work of the cold 
war and remove the nuclear threat from our children's future. And we are 
making real progress there. We must try to limit the spread of all 
weapons of mass destruction and contain terrorism and the truly 
astonishing new threat of global organized crime. We must also try to 
spread a system of free economies and open trading so that as people 
work together and deal with each other, their suspicions and animosities 
and hatreds go down, and their sense of the practical benefits of being 
more open and more free and more democratic come to them.
    But we also have a special responsibility here in our own 
neighborhood, even as other countries do in their own neighborhoods, to 
deal with things which the world community condemns. And that is why we 
have sought for 3 years to restore democracy to Haiti, to end violence 
and terrorism and human rights violations, to see that all parties lived 
up to their commitments, to keep democracy on the move in our hemisphere 
and encourage those fledgling democracies to be brave and to go forward, 
to stabilize the borders and the territorial integrity of all countries, 
including ours.

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    I have done everything I could to that end, along with the United 
Nations, the Caribbean community, and the Organization of the American 
States. Now there is an international coalition committed to 
implementing United Nations Security Council Resolution 940. Twenty-four 
other nations from around the world, with more to come, have already 
said they would come here to be with us to help to bring democracy back. 
I have great pride and confidence in our troops. And we are honored to 
have the support of these nations and of the United Nations.
    Yesterday the international coalition gathered at the White House 
and heard a very moving address by President Aristide in which he said 
that there should be no violence; there should be no retaliation; there 
should be no recrimination; everyone should simply lay down their arms 
and go to work at building a country that has suffered for too long from 
hatred and violence and recrimination. If it can be done in South 
Africa, surely it can be done in Haiti.
    And then yesterday evening, as all of you now know, I asked 
President Carter and General Powell and Senator Nunn to go to Haiti and 
try our last best effort to have a peaceful transition, to follow the 
will of the international community to end the bloodshed, to restore 
democracy.
    Tonight, whatever your feelings and wherever you're from, I ask you 
to remember this simple statement made by Prime Minister Arthur of 
Barbados yesterday when he said, and I quote, ``The Haitian people have 
wished for democracy. They have suffered for it. They have voted for it. 
And now they are dying for it.'' The time for idle discussion has ended. 
There is still a little time for serious discussion.
    Tonight, as we move toward Sunday, our worship day for those of us 
who are Christians, I ask all of you to say a prayer for all the people 
of Haiti, for the members of our Armed Forces, and for the cause of 
peace. We are doing our duty, and I am doing mine, as I believe it to be 
plain and evident. But we all must hope every day and every way that we 
can go forward in peace.
    My decisions are firm and clear. The mission is still in Haiti. Let 
us hope for its success. But whatever happens, let us resolve that we 
will stand against violations of human rights and terrorism in our 
neighborhood. We will stand for democracy, and we will keep our 
commitments and expect those who make commitments to us to keep theirs.
    I ask you now as I leave to remember these things and each in your 
own way, as hard as you can, say a prayer for peace and for the success 
of our effort there. It is a part of the future we wish to build for our 
young people and for our country into the 21st century.
    Thank you, God bless you, and good night.

Note: The President spoke at 9:45 p.m. at the Washington Convention 
Center. In his remarks, he referred to civil rights activisit Rosa 
Parks, who was recently hospitalized after being attacked in her home.