[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 37, Number 2 (Monday, January 15, 2001)]
[Pages 75-76]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks Honoring Dorothy Height at the National Council of Negro Women

January 10, 2001

    I'd like to thank Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, and Donald 
Payne from New Jersey, and our neighbor, Elijah Cummings, thank you for 
being here. I've actually known Dorothy Height for several years. Before 
I became President I knew her, thanks to my wife. They were on the board 
of the Children's Defense Fund 25 years ago, when I was still a child. 
[Laughter]
    And I was just looking at her speak today, as she was just up here 
speaking, and how fluid and eloquent she was, and I thought, she has 
more energy at 88 than most people have at 22.
    I wanted to come here to help you with your Dorothy Height's legacy 
initiative, to pay off the mortgage of this magnificent old building. 
It's an extra added treat to see the chair where Mr. Lincoln posed for 
Mathew Brady. I love those old photographs. And I have two myself, 
Dorothy, that I've collected over the years--two that Abraham Lincoln 
sat for in 1861 and 1862, as well as a copy from the original plate of 
the photograph he took in June of 1860, 2 weeks before he became the 
nominee of the Republican Party for President.
    So I'm honored to be here with that memory and that legacy, but 
mostly with your legacy. And I think you belong in this building, and 
you belong midway between the Capitol and the White House, so you can 
keep an eye on both parties. [Laughter]
    You know, Dorothy said that the National Council of Negro Women has 
been in business since 1935. You just think about what America was like 
in 1935 and think about all the hills we've climbed since then. And as 
generous as you were to me, frankly, all I did was what was self-
evident, what I believed in my heart. What you have had to do was to 
change the laws and the heart of America, and you did it in a 
magnificent fashion, and I thank you.
    You mentioned our efforts to build one America. Ben Johnson has done 
a great job heading our one America effort in our offices there. I hope 
that in the future this will be a nonpartisan effort, because America is 
growing so much more racially and ethnically and religiously diverse.
    I was in a grade school in Chicago yesterday, where half the kids 
were Asian, 18 percent were African-American, 17.5 percent were 
Hispanic, the rest were white ethnic, mostly Croatian. And that's where 
we're going. And it's going to be a great ride if we get it right. But 
whatever is still there

[[Page 76]]

we need to give up, we're going to have to shed it, because we don't 
have a lot of time to waste now.
    And I think that if you look all over the world, all the trouble 
spots of the world, most countries and most people get in trouble when 
they try to organize folks around hatred or disdain or disregard for 
people or groups who are different from them. They either look different 
than they do, they worship God in a different way, or they're just 
different. And it's hard to get to the point in life where you can have 
an honest disagreement with somebody and still acknowledge that their 
humanity is just as valid as yours and that life's a lot more 
interesting because they're not just like you are.
    If everybody were just like us, then life wouldn't be nearly as 
interesting as it is. Sometimes, life in America is a little too 
interesting to suit me, but--[laughter]--but still, it's good. You know, 
it keeps us flourishing, and it keeps the country forever young.
    I honestly believe that Dorothy is so young after all these years of 
effort because she has given herself to a larger and higher calling. If 
you get up every day and do good, it eventually will show on your face; 
it will be heard in your voice. It just is unavoidable. And her beauty 
and youth is a testament of the timelessness of her cause. And I'm just 
glad to be one of her foot soldiers here today.
    Thank you very much.

Note: The President spoke at 1:48 p.m. in the lobby. A tape was not 
available for verification of the content of these remarks.