[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 30, Number 39 (Monday, October 3, 1994)]
[Pages 1908-1909]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Proclamation 6728--National Disability Employment Awareness Month, 1994

September 30, 1994

By the President of the United States

of America

A Proclamation

    Like every civil rights law in our Nation's history, the Americans 
with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) is about potential. We see that 
potential reflected every day in the faces of America--from the 
AmeriCorps volunteers of Gallaudet University to the athletes taking 
part in this year's trials for the Special Olympics World Games. In 
myriad ways, our citizens continually prove the proposition on which our 
Nation was founded: that empowered by the freedom to dream, to work, and 
to succeed, every one of us can accomplish great things.
    As we commemorate National Disability Employment Awareness Month, 
1994, employers across the country are recognizing that in the hiring of 
people with disabilities, basic fairness and economic good sense are one 
and the same. Prohibiting discrimination in employment, public 
accommodation, government services, transportation, and communications, 
the ADA holds up a model and an important challenge to businesses at 
home and around the world. In this country, the 49 million Americans 
with disabilities represent one of our largest untapped resources--a 
resource upon which we must rely if we are to succeed in an increasingly 
competitive international marketplace. Their knowledge and skill, their 
energy and creativity are essential in building a work force that will 
carry our economy into the next century.

[[Page 1909]]

    This year, we celebrate as the ADA provisions for fair employment 
practices go into effect for small businesses throughout the land. These 
provisions are designed to open a vast new world of opportunity to 
American workers and employers, and our Nation stands committed to fully 
implement and to aggressively enforce the ADA in our schools and 
workplaces, in government and in public facilities. With this measure, 
our citizens will enjoy more avenues to freedom than ever. Indeed, it is 
past time to free all of our people to dream, to work, to succeed, and 
finally to fulfill the vast potential that is America.
    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 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 all.
    Now, Therefore, I, William J. Clinton, President of the United 
States of America, do hereby proclaim October 1994 as National 
Disability Employment Awareness Month. I call upon 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 and related laws.
    In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this thirtieth day 
of September, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and ninety-four, 
and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred 
and nineteenth.
                                            William J. Clinton

[Filed with the Office of the Federal Register, 1:27 p.m., October 3, 
1994]

Note: This proclamation will be published in the Federal Register on 
October 5.