[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 35, Number 3 (Monday, January 25, 1999)]
[Pages 74-76]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks to AmeriCorps Volunteers

January 18, 1999

    The President. Thank you very much. Good afternoon, everyone.
    Audience members. Good afternoon.
    The President. First of all, I'd like to say that I am very grateful 
to be here at Regency House with all of you. I want to thank the 
residency council for making us feel welcome--Sarah Beaner, Kenneth 
Brown and others.
    I want to say to the members of the press here--you know, the press, 
they all think that we're all on automatic, because they give us little 
notes here to read about every place we go. But I think it would be 
interesting for you to know the note I got on Regency House here: Sarah 
Beaner is the president of the residency council; Kenneth Brown is the 
past president and is now serving as the vice president, not such a bad 
idea. [Laughter] Regency House has 157 tenants. The tenant population is 
made up of seniors and the disabled. They are all current in their rent. 
[Laughter] Good for you; that's great.
    Let me say to the mayor and Councilmember Patterson and Delegate 
Norton, I am honored to be here to participate in Martin Luther King Day 
as a day of service, as provided by law and in the spirit of what Dr. 
King said. And I am proud that I live in a city with truly outstanding 
leadership. Eleanor Holmes Norton has been my friend for a very long 
time and is one of the most remarkable women in any leadership capacity 
of any kind in the United States. DC is fortunate to have her.
    The mayor, in his former life, was actually a member of our 
administration in the Agriculture Department. And you know, it didn't 
really offend me that we'd already torn the wall down by the time he 
showed up today--[laughter]--because he's working hard, and he's got a 
lot of things to do. And I feel good about what he's going to achieve. 
And, Mr. Mayor, you just stay on the job, and I'll tear a wall down for 
you any day your want, any time, anywhere, and I thank you.
    I want to thank David Gilmore of the DC Housing Authority and my 
great member of the White House staff Ben Johnson who did used to be a 
former director of DC Public Housing. The others whom the Vice President 
mentioned with AmeriCorps--Deb Jospin, John Gomperts. But mostly I want 
to thank these young volunteers behind me.
    Near the end of Dr. King's life, he envisioned a partnership in 
America across racial lines. He could never have imagined that America 
would become so diverse as it is today. But AmeriCorps, it seems to me, 
is the living, breathing embodiment of the way Martin Luther King 
thought all of America ought to work. And that's what I wanted to do 
when we established it.
    You might be interested to know that in only 4 years, since we set 
AmeriCorps up and got it going, more than 100,000 volunteers have joined 
AmeriCorps. It took the Peace Corps 20 years to reach that milestone. 
And they have done unbelievable things to make America a better place: 
helping to deal

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with natural emergencies, helping to build houses, helping to tutor 
children, helping to immunize children, working in a thousand 
communities across this country.
    And if you just look at these young people standing behind me, you 
know they come from all different parts of America; they come from all 
different backgrounds; they had different kind of reasons for joining 
AmeriCorps. They came here after different points of experience in their 
lives. And I'm very, very proud of them, and I thank them.
    You should know that today more than 100,000 volunteers are out 
there keeping Dr. King's dream alive. AmeriCorps members, seniors, 
students, soldiers are rehabilitating buildings, painting schools, 
cleaning neighborhoods, reading to children. They are doing what Dr. 
King would want us to do.
    I also want to mention one other thing. The Vice President talked 
about the need to continue to fight discrimination. Dr. King believed 
that every American, regardless of race, religion, or background should 
be able to live in a home without discrimination. Today, on this Martin 
Luther King Day, I am pleased to announce the largest settlement in 
history in a lending discrimination for home lending.
    Let me tell you about it; it will affect a lot of people's lives. 
Thanks to the efforts of the Department of Housing and Urban 
Development, under the leadership of Secretary Cuomo, the Columbia 
National Mortgage Company will offer--listen to this--$6.5 billion in 
home mortgages and extra effort to help 78,000 minority and low and 
moderate income families unlock the door to homeownership. This 
settlement was made under the Fair Housing Act which Congress passed 
just 6 days--just 6 days--after Dr. King was killed. He had worked for 
years to outlaw discrimination in housing. And many who voted for the 
measure said they did it in tribute to him. So here all these years 
later--31 years later, to be exact--we're proud that it's happened on 
Dr. King's national holiday.
    Now let me just say one final thing. Yesterday, in the church that 
Hillary and I attend, they observed Dr. King's birthday with some 
special music. They had a wonderful singer from the Army Chorus, they 
did a lot--but one of the songs they sang that I love so well was one of 
Martin Luther King's favorite hymns, and it embodies what we are doing 
here today. The first line of the hymn is, ``If I can help somebody,'' 
and the last line is, ``then my living will not be in vain.''
    All these people are here not only because they want to help you, 
but because their lives are richer because of it. And we're all learning 
and growing. And besides that, as the press pointed out, it did the Vice 
President and me a lot of good to pick up those hammers and crowbars and 
tear something down. [Laughter] You know, we do this desk work all the 
time and we do this word work all the time, and there's not always a 
beginning, a middle, and an end. There was a beginning to that wall, a 
middle, and it is no longer; it is over. [Laughter] So we are very 
grateful that you gave us the chance to be part of this today, and we 
thank you.
    Again, I want to say I hope all across America people will hear 
this. Look at these young people--they're here with you; they're getting 
something out of this, too. Their lives will be richer and better. They 
will be wiser sooner. They will be more sensitive and more understanding 
more quickly in their lives because of the experience they've had here 
and the other experiences in AmeriCorps. Every American needs to serve. 
And remember what Dr. King said: Everyone can be great because everyone 
can serve.
    Thank you, and God bless you.
    Now, I know we're done, but I want to say a special word of 
recognition to Melody Scales and Beth McCarthy of AmeriCorps who work 
with me, and to Donald Stokes, who is a resident here. I'd like for them 
to come up and be recognized, since they worked with the Vice President 
and me. Come on up here. [Applause] This is our crew, and if you need a 
wall torn down, you couldn't do better than this.

Note: The President spoke at 1:53 p.m. at Regency House. In his remarks, 
he referred to Mayor Anthony A. Williams and Ward 3 Councilmember Kathy 
Patterson of Washington, DC.

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