[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 32, Number 2 (Monday, January 15, 1996)]
[Pages 53-54]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Proclamation 6861--Martin Luther King, Jr., Federal Holiday, 1996

January 12, 1996

By the President of the United States

of America

A Proclamation

    Our country's motto, ``E Pluribus Unum''--out of many we are one--
charges us to find common values among our varied experience and to 
forge a national identity out of our extraordinary diversity. Our great 
leaders have been defined not only by their actions, but also by their 
ability to inspire people toward a unity of purpose. Today we honor Dr. 
Martin Luther King, Jr., who focused attention on the segregation that 
poisoned our society and whose example moved our Nation to embrace a new 
standard of openness and inclusion.
    From Montgomery to Birmingham, from the Lincoln Memorial to Memphis, 
Dr. King led us to see the great contradiction between our founders' 
declaration that ``all men are created equal'' and the daily reality of 
oppression endured by African Americans. His words have become such a 
part of our moral fabric that we may forget that only a generation ago, 
children of different races were legally forbidden to attend the same 
schools, that segregated buses and trains traveled our neighborhoods, 
and that African Americans were often prevented from registering to 
vote. Echoing Abraham Lincoln's warning that a house divided against 
itself cannot stand, Dr. King urged, ``We must learn to live together as 
brothers, or we will perish as fools.''
    Martin Luther King, Jr.'s call for American society to truly reflect 
the ideals on which it was built succeeded in galvanizing a political 
and moral consensus that led to legislation guaranteeing all our 
citizens the right to vote, to obtain housing, to enter places of public 
accommodation, and to participate in all aspects of American life 
without regard to race, gender, background, or belief.
    But despite the great accomplishments of the Civil Rights Movement, 
we have not yet torn down every obstacle to equality. Too many of our 
cities are still racially segregated, and remaining barriers to 
education and opportunity have caused an array of social problems that 
disproportionately affect African Americans. As a result, blacks and 
whites often see the world in strikingly different ways and too often 
view each other through a lens of mistrust or fear.
    Today we face a choice between the dream of racial harmony that 
Martin Luther King, Jr., described and a deepening of the rift that 
divides the races in America. We must have the faith and wisdom that Dr. 
King preached and the convictions he lived by if we are to make this a 
time for healing and progress--and each of us must play a role. For only 
by sitting down with our neighbors in the workplace and classroom, 
reaching across racial lines in our places for worship and community 
centers, and examining our own most deep-seated beliefs, can we have the 
honest conversations that will enable us to understand the different 
ways we each experience the challenges of modern life. This is the 
peaceful process of reconciliation that Dr.

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King fought and died for, and we must do all we can to live and teach 
his lesson.
    Now, Therefore, I, William J. Clinton, President of the United 
States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the 
Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim January 
15, 1996, as the Martin Luther King, Jr., Federal Holiday. I call upon 
the people of the United States to observe this occasion with 
appropriate programs, ceremonies, and activities.
    In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this twelfth day of 
January, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and ninety-six, and of 
the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and 
twentieth.
                                            William J. Clinton

[Filed with the Office of the Federal Register, 8:45 a.m., January 17, 
1996]

Note: This proclamation was published in the Federal Register on January 
18.