[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 37, Number 3 (Monday, January 22, 2001)]
[Pages 121-125]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at a Martin Luther King, Jr., Holiday Celebration

January 15, 2001

    The President. Thank you very much. Normally, I don't think 
Presidents should get awards. But I believe I'll accept these, if it's 
all the same to you.
    I want to begin by saying that I am delighted to be here at this 
university, in this great hall, with all the people who are here on the 
stage. I brought something to Mayor Williams and to Representative 
Eleanor Holmes Norton. He mentioned that we signed the--that we passed 
the Southeast Federal Center bill to spur community development with a 
public/private partnership on Federal property. At the time it passed, 
we weren't able to do a formal signing ceremony, so I brought Mayor 
Williams and Eleanor Holmes Norton a copy of the bill and the pens I 
used to sign it, and I'd like to give it to them now.
    I want to thank the DC City Council Chair Linda Cropp, Kathy 
Patterson, and the other councilmembers who are here who helped to make 
my stay in Washington, along with my family's, so wonderful. I want to 
thank Robie Beatty and Shirley Rivens Smith from the King Holiday 
Commission.
    I'd like to thank the people who are here from my administration, 
present and former. I want to thank Frank Raines, former Director of 
OMB, and Jack Lew, our present Director, for all the work they did, 
along with the indomitable Alice Rivlin, to make sure that the Federal 
Government became a better partner for the District of Columbia in the 
allocation of our money.
    On this Martin Luther King Holiday, I want to thank my friend of 
almost 20 years, the Secretary of Transportation, Rodney Slater, who is 
always serving. And I want to thank the present head of the Corporation 
of National Service and the person who started our national service 
program, first Senator Harris Wofford, then Eli Segal. Thank you for 
bring AmeriCorps to life.
    And I know we have AmeriCorps award winners and their families here 
and members and alumni. Thank you for your service. And thank you, Nancy 
Rubin, for your support. I also am proud to announce on Eli Segal's

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birthday that under the leadership of Nancy Rubin, a group of people are 
creating a new Eli Segal AmeriCorps Award for Entrepreneurial 
Leadership, and I thank you for that.
    And I want to thank the members of the new DC Commission on National 
and Community Service. I just came from the kick-off, and I swore in the 
first community service volunteers--swore in, not swore at--[laughter]--
the first community service volunteers. And we did some painting, and I 
can prove it because I've got paint on my pants and shoes to show it--
[laughter]--not the ones I'm wearing now.
    I want to thank Mayor Williams for this award and for what he said 
about our common efforts to make this great city even greater. It has 
been a real honor for me to live and work in Washington these last 8 
years. I went to college here, and I worked here when I was a young man. 
And I love this city. I loved all of its neighborhoods. Even when I was 
in college, I spent a lot of time in all the neighborhoods. I was a 
community service volunteer in Northeast Washington when I was a student 
at Georgetown. And one of the first things I did after I got elected was 
to take a walk down Georgia Avenue. It looks better today than it did 8 
years ago, I might add.
    And I'm very proud of the work that we have done. I'm also--you 
might be interested to know that when Hillary was elected to the Senate 
and we had to find a place for her to live, she absolutely insisted on 
living in the District of Columbia. She wanted to be here. So I'll be 
back from time to time. [Laughter]
    Audience member. Don't go! [Laughter]
    The President. Don't say that. [Laughter] I want you to know that 
while I think we have done a reasonably good job these last few years of 
relocating government functions and getting more funds to the District 
of Columbia and getting some of the burdens off your back that should be 
lifted, I believe that you should still have your votes in Congress and 
the Senate. I think that, maybe even more important, you should have the 
rights and powers and responsibilities that statehood carries.

[At this point, reveille was played on a bugle.]

    The President. We practiced that for an hour yesterday. How did we 
do? [Laughter] We did great. It's okay. It's all right. It was good. I 
mean, it--[laughter]--you know, look, I've only got 5 days left; it's 
hard to hold your interest. So we did the best we could. [Laughter]
    And I want you to know that the Secret Service delivered to me this 
morning, so I get to ride around in it for 5 days, the newest 
Presidential limousine, which, I might add, is an enormous improvement 
in terms of the workability of the inner space. But we still have the 
license plates on it that calls for DC statehood. So I hope you'll keep 
working on that and keep making the case.
    Meanwhile, we have worked together to use Federal resources to help 
spark economic growth, housing development, and job creation: over a 
billion dollars in new tax incentives for businesses and homeowners; $25 
million to build the New York Avenue Metro station; $110 million for new 
and better public housing in Anacostia; $17 million for the DC College 
Access Act--3,000 young people now taking advantage of that in its very 
first year. Congratulations. I want to thank all of you who worked in 
the vineyards to make all these things happen.
    This is a day we celebrate not only the life but the service of 
Martin Luther King, and not only the service of the famous but the 
service of those who are not known, embodied in the famous statement of 
Dr. King that everybody can be great because everybody can serve. You 
forget the rest of it--``you only need a heart full of grace and a soul 
generated by love.''
    In 1992 when I ran for President, and Eleanor and I actually jogged 
up Pennsylvania Avenue in the rain together, some people thought that 
America had become so divided and cynical that somehow the spirit of 
service was gone, especially among our young people. I never believed 
that. Then I read all these articles about young people, this so-called 
generation X group, and how self-absorbed and selfish they were. I never 
believed that. I saw people serving together everywhere and yearning to 
be part of a higher calling.
    In 1993 in my Inaugural Address, I challenged the American people to 
a new season

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of service. And I proposed national service legislation to give young 
people in America the chance to serve in their own communities or other 
communities across the country and earn some money for college while 
doing it. Well, I think that what these young people have done in the 
last 7 years, since we had the first AmeriCorps class of 1994, has 
proved that what I saw 8 years ago was right. I'll say more about that 
in a moment.
    In 1994 I signed the King Holiday and Service Act, sponsored by then 
Senator Harris Wofford and Congressman John Lewis of Atlanta, who worked 
with Dr. King. They wanted to make this holiday a day on, not a day off. 
Today, as a result of what they did, hundreds of thousands of our fellow 
citizens are serving in their communities today, including over 1,000 
here in Washington.
    I've just come from the Greenleaf Senior Center with some very 
dedicated young people from four AmeriCorps projects, including City 
Year, a program that I found in Boston in 1991 that helped to inspire 
the creation of the national service program we have today. Today I 
swore in the first new members of City Year here in Washington, DC. When 
I became President, there were 100 of them around the country--100 
members; today there are over 1,000 in 13 cities.
    But listen to this. When we created the AmeriCorps program in 1994, 
we wanted to give young people the chance to serve. Obviously, we didn't 
know how many people would do it. The pay is modest. The scholarship 
benefits are not inconsiderable, but they're not enormous. But listen to 
this. Since the first class of volunteers in 1994, almost 200,000 men 
and women have participated, more than have served in the Peace Corps in 
the 40 years since it was created.
    I say that not to diminish the Peace Corps; I'm a huge supporter of 
the Peace Corps. We've dramatically increased enrollment there, and I'd 
like to see the Congress continue to do so. But I just want to make the 
point that people do want to serve in our communities; they do want to 
make a difference.
    And today, the young people that I painted the columns with over at 
the Greenleaf Community Center, three of them were from the DC area, but 
one was a young woman from Seattle. And the other young AmeriCorps 
volunteers I swore in, they were from all over America. And that's the 
great thing about it. You get all kinds of people, all different races 
and ethnic groups and backgrounds and income groups, coming together in 
all kinds of communities, dealing with all kinds of other people. And 
pretty soon, before you know it, you've got America at its best just 
happening there at the grassroots level. This is a big deal. And these 
200,000 people have not only changed their own lives but the lives of 
millions and millions of other Americans. We must continue to do this.
    So far there have been 677 DC residents in AmeriCorps. They've 
earned a total--listen to this--of $2\1/2\ million for college 
education. And I want to thank, by the way, since we're here, the 
University of the District of Columbia, along with seven other of 
Washington's colleges and universities, for their participation in the 
AmeriCorps Heads Up program. AmeriCorps volunteers who are students here 
work as reading and math tutors at Davis Elementary School in Benning 
Heights, gaining valuable teaching experience. And the young people they 
are tutoring are gaining a head start on learning that will last a 
lifetime.
    Citizen service changes people for the better. I don't know how many 
times I've heard volunteers in the classroom say they have learned more 
than their students have. And that makes every one of our young 
volunteers a winner. But today I want to congratulate some very special 
ones, those who won this year's All-AmeriCorps Award, 10 men and women 
selected for outstanding service to AmeriCorps.
    And I want to talk about it a little bit to try to illustrate that 
this is not just about numbers. Yes, we've got 200,000 people in 
AmeriCorps in 7 years of classes, more than 40 years in the Peace Corps. 
Yes, they've gone all across this country and had a transforming effect. 
But that's the key. It's not the numbers, it's the impact. The adult 
literacy programs, the community learning centers, the volunteer 
programs--that these award winners are getting today--are still going 
strong, in some cases, years after their service has ended.

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    One young woman is a former migrant worker who used the skills she 
learned in AmeriCorps to teach 2,400 farm workers about pesticide 
safety. One man has been elected mayor of the community in which he 
served. Shoot, I wish we would have had this around when I was a kid. 
[Laughter]
    Right here in Washington, Carey Hartin started a diversity club to 
help the many cultures at Roosevelt High School understand one another 
better. The kids in that club were so inspired, they went out and got a 
grant to expand Carey's program to other DC schools. Carey is now 
studying for her master's in education and student teaching at Cardozo 
High School. Where are you, Carey? Stand up there. Give her a hand. 
[Applause] Good for you.
    She also has with her today another success story, the young woman 
who was the first president of Roosevelt High's Diversity Club, and is 
now in college studying music education. Stand up--where are you? 
[Applause] Give her a hand.
    Now I want all the award winners to stand up. Let's give them all a 
big hand. [Applause] Thank you all, and bless you.
    Let me say, when you see their numbers, you should multiply in your 
head times 12, because studies show that every full-time AmeriCorps 
volunteer generates on average a dozen more volunteers.
    Now, all across America, you should also know that one million 
students are doing public service as a part of their school curriculum. 
And I might say, I would like to see every State in America follow the 
lead of the State of Maryland, under Lieutenant Governor Kathleen 
Kennedy Townsend, and require, as a course, community service as a 
condition of graduation from high school. I think it would be a very 
good thing.
    The United Nations has named 2001 the International Year of 
Volunteers. Americans have a lot to be proud of on that score. Our 
citizens are volunteering more and giving more to charitable causes than 
ever before. And the most generous donors by percentage are families 
with incomes of less than $10,000 a year.
    I came here today, on Martin Luther King's Holiday, to talk about 
citizen service and AmeriCorps because it is the embodiment of my dreams 
of one America, an America in which we not only tolerate but respect and 
even celebrate our differences, but in which we work together and live 
together knowing that our common humanity is even more important.
    Part of Martin Luther King's dream was somehow we would learn to 
``work together, pray together, struggle together, go to jail together, 
stand up for freedom together.'' If I could leave America with one wish 
as I depart office, it would be that we become more the one America that 
we know we ought to be.
    Today I'm sending a message to Congress--you can read about it in 
the papers; I won't go through it all--but it follows up on the work I 
have done on this One America initiative over the last several years. 
And I wanted to basically inform the Congress and the incoming 
administration about where we are in dealing with our racial issues, our 
opportunities and our continuing difficulties, about what progress we 
have made in the last 8 years and what still needs to be done to build 
one America.
    I advocated some things that will doubtless be somewhat 
controversial, but I have been working on them: improvements in the 
criminal justice system; restoring voting rights to people when they 
complete their sentences, so they don't have to get a Presidential 
pardon; a national election commission headed by Presidents Ford and 
Carter to look into why some Americans have so much difficulty voting 
and how we can ever avoid--always avoid having another election like the 
last one, with all the controversies that we had there; and new steps 
forward in closing the disparities in health and education and economic 
development.
    But what I want to say to you is that building one America is like 
life. It's a journey, not a destination. And the main thing will always 
be whether we're still making the trip.
    Did any of you see the jazz series on TV this week? It was fabulous, 
wasn't it? My favorite line in the whole thing--my favorite line was 
uttered by that great Washington, DC, native Duke Ellington. When he was 
asked, ``What's your favorite jazz tune,'' he said, ``The one coming 
up.'' [Laughter] Well,

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believe me, that's what I believe about our country.
    I see these young people, I see these volunteers, and it's been an 
honor for me to serve. It's been an honor for me to help make Washington 
stronger and better. But when somebody asks you what the best day is, 
think about these young folks and say, ``The one coming up.''
    Thank you very much, and God bless you.

Note: The President spoke at 12:32 p.m. in the Building 46 Auditorium at 
the University of the District of Columbia. In his remarks, he referred 
to Mayor Anthony A. Williams, Council Chair Linda Cropp, and Ward 3 
Councilmember Kathy Patterson of Washington, DC; Alice Rivlin, chair, DC 
Financial Responsibility and Management Assistance Authority; Chief 
Executive Officer Harris Wofford and former Chief Executive Officer Eli 
Segal, Corporation for National Service; Nancy Rubin, U.S. Ambassador to 
the U.N. Human Rights Commission; and All-AmeriCorps Award winners 
Angela Campos, Mayor Cleveland L. Rippons of Cambridge, MD, and Carey 
Hartin. H.R. 3069, the Southeast Federal Center Public-Private 
Development Act of 2000, approved November 1, 2000, was assigned Public 
Law No. 106-407.