[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 41, Number 6 (Monday, February 14, 2005)]
[Pages 195-197]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at a Celebration of African American History Month

February 8, 2005

    Good afternoon, and welcome to the White House, the people's house. 
Laura and I are pleased you're here so we can celebrate together the 
79th celebration of African American History Month. We're here today 
because of the dedication and persistence of a man named Dr. Carter G. 
Woodson.
    In the 1920s, Dr. Woodson argued that if African Americans were to 
take their rightful place in society, young Americans of all races 
needed to learn about the black contribution to our history and culture. 
So in 1926, he launched the first black history week. Today, a movement 
that began in black churches and schoolrooms is observed all across 
America, including the White House. Welcome.
    The civil rights pioneers of Dr. Woodson's era also had another 
dream, a national museum to celebrate the history and achievements of 
African Americans. On December 16, 2003, I was proud to sign legislation 
that will create the National Museum of African American History and 
Culture within the Smithsonian Institution. Laura and I are pleased to 
welcome to the White House so many who were instrumental in the passage 
of that legislation and those who will help us make the museum a 
reality.
    I welcome Members of the Congress. Senator Chris Dodd, thank you for 
coming. Rick Santorum, Sam Brownback, and Barack Obama, welcome. 
Congressman Mel Watt, the Chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, is 
with us. Thank you for coming, Mr. Chairman. Eleanor Holmes Norton, 
delegate from the District of Columbia; Jack Kingston from the State of 
Georgia--welcome, Congressman, thank you for coming. And finally, 
Congresswoman Carolyn Kilpatrick. Now, I've got a report for you: Today 
I was with her son, the mayor of Detroit, who looked mighty special. 
[Laughter] Welcome.
    It's such an honor to be with Dr. Dorothy Height. You look great. 
Thanks for coming, Dorothy.
    Members of the Council of the National Museum of African American 
History and Culture, thank you for serving. Today is the first day in 
which folks are able to contribute to the building of the museum. Laura 
and I want to be one of your first contributors, and so I--you know 
where to find me. [Laughter]
    I'm honored that members of the original Tuskegee Airmen have joined 
us. We're proud of your service. I told the members of the Tuskegee 
Airmen how important the example they set for those who wear our uniform 
today, and it is a shining example. And you've just got to know that 
you've made a huge difference in the lives of a lot of people.
    I also want to welcome Mary Moore, or ``Rosie the Riveter.'' Thank 
you for coming. We're proud you're here. Frederick Douglas

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IV and his wife, B.J., are with us. Thank you for coming. And Cicely 
Tyson--the ever-beautiful Cicely Tyson.
    As we celebrate this month, we must remember a great actor, Ossie 
Davis, who passed away on Friday. Laura and I and many in this room were 
honored to salute Ossie and his remarkable wife, Ruby Dee, at the 
Kennedy Center Honors last December. The entire Davis family are in our 
prayers. May God comfort them in their sorrow.
    I appreciate so very much the chance to have gone to Goree Island in 
Senegal. Laura and I traveled there during my Presidency. It was an 
amazing experience for us. It was gut-wrenching to see the cramped cells 
where Africans were held right before they began their journey to 
America in chains. We stood in the ``door of no return.'' I'll never 
forget that feeling. It's a door through which so many innocent men, 
women, and children passed through. They would be loaded as cargo on to 
ships for the long voyage across the Atlantic to a future of slavery and 
servitude.
    You know, it reminded me, standing in that door--as I think back to 
standing in that door, it reminds me how important the museum is going 
to be, because young Americans study this shameful period in history in 
their schools, and they read their textbooks, but most young Americans 
will never go to Goree Island or get the same sense that we felt.
    And so when the National Museum of American History and Culture 
opens--and it will open--visitors will be able to have a much more vivid 
sense of what slavery meant for real men and real women. It is important 
to know--and this museum is going to be a really important museum, 
because it's important that our children know that there was a time in 
their Nation's history when one in every seven human beings was the 
property of another. They need to know how families were separated, 
denied even the comfort of suffering together. It's an important lesson 
of a shameful period that the young must never forget.
    And they need to know that bigotry and discrimination did not end 
with slavery, that within the lifetimes of their own parents and 
grandparents, Americans were still barred by law from hotels and 
restaurants, made to drink from separate water fountains, forced to sit 
in the back of a bus, all because of the color of their skin. We need to 
teach them about the heroes of the civil rights movement, who by their 
courage and dignity forced America to confront the central defect of our 
founding.
    And we all need to learn more about the men and women whose 
determination and persistent eloquence forced Americans of all races to 
examine our hearts, revise our Constitution and laws, and make America 
into the Nation it was always supposed to be.
    The theme of this year's African American History Month is the 100th 
anniversary of the ``Niagara Movement.'' Led by W.E.B. DuBois and John 
Hope and William Monroe Trotter, the Niagara Movement rejected any 
accommodation with discrimination and challenged our Nation to grant its 
African American citizens the same rights enjoyed by other Americans. In 
so doing, it helped lay a foundation for the civil rights movement that 
would change America in the decades that followed.
    Like Dr. Woodson, W.E.B. DuBois placed his hopes in our youngest 
citizens, those who had not yet been taught to hate. So he directed his 
call to them. He said, ``We appeal to the young men and women of this 
Nation . . . Stand up for the right, prove yourselves worthy of your 
heritage and . . . dare to treat men as men.'' His appeal echoes across 
a century, doesn't it? It made sense then; it makes sense now. And 
serves to remind us that while slavery has been abolished and 
segregation outlawed, the struggle for justice and equality has not yet 
ended.
    At the start of this new century, we will continue to teach habits 
of respect to each generation. We will continue to enforce laws against 
racial discrimination in education and housing and public 
accommodations. We'll continue working to spread hope and opportunity to 
African Americans with no inheritance but their character, by giving 
them greater access to capital and education and the chance to own and 
build and dream for the future. In this way, African Americans can pass 
on a better life and a better nation to their children and their 
grandchildren, and that's what we want in America.

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    We're making progress, but there's more work to be done. Today, 
American schools are no longer separate, but they're not yet equal. Too 
many of our children still face what I have called the soft bigotry of 
low expectations. With the No Child Left Behind Act, we've raised 
expectations. We believe every child can learn, and we expect every 
school to teach. And we measure. And guess what's happening? Test scores 
are going up. There's an achievement gap for minority children that is 
closing in America.
    Today, the minority homeownership rate in America is at an alltime 
high. That's incredibly good news. I love it when more and more people 
open the door to their house and say, ``Welcome to my home''--not just, 
``Welcome to where I live,'' but, ``Welcome to my home.'' And we'll 
continue to expand opportunity for homeownership in America.
    We'll work to strengthen families. Children from two-parent homes 
are less likely to end up in poverty or drop out of school. It's 
important that families be strong in America. HIV/AIDS brings suffering 
and fear into so many lives, and so we need to focus on fighting this 
disease among those with the highest rates of new cases, African 
American men and women. We need to give our young people, especially 
young men in inner cities, better options than apathy or gangs and jail. 
And I want to thank Laura for taking on this incredibly important 
initiative to help young men realize a great future in America.
    You know, in the last half-century, the cause of liberty has made 
great strides in this country and around the world. At each stage and on 
every front, African Americans have helped to lead this advance. African 
Americans struggled peacefully for their own freedom on the streets of 
Birmingham and on the Mall here at Washington, DC. Some of you were 
probably there. They have fought for America's freedom on distant 
battlefields, and at this moment many are serving bravely in Afghanistan 
and Iraq. And we respect their courage, and we honor their sacrifice.
    They know, as we do, that success of freedom on the homefront is 
critical to its success in foreign lands. As I said in my Inaugural 
Address, we cannot carry the message of freedom and the baggage of 
bigotry at the same time.
    We've made progress, and our work is not yet done. But we can 
proceed with faith in our country and confidence in our cause. See, 
history moves toward freedom because the desire of freedom is written in 
every human heart. As W.E.B. DuBois declared nearly a century ago, ``The 
battle for humanity is not lost or losing . . . The morning breaks over 
blood-stained hills. We must not falter. We must not shrink. Above are 
the everlasting stars.''
    I want to thank you all for coming. Thank you for helping us 
celebrate this month as well as to make it clear to our fellow citizens 
we have a chance to build a fantastic museum, right here in the heart of 
Washington, DC, on the Mall, to stand proud. And I'm confident there 
will be an appropriate web page--[laughter]--for people to be able to 
tap in. Perhaps you should start, if you're interested, in going to the 
Smithsonian web page, and I suspect there may be an avenue that will 
direct you toward this important museum and cultural center, that will 
enable our fellow citizens to participate in helping to build it.
    There will be a reception at the end of the hall here. We're really 
thrilled you're here. And may God continue to bless our great country.

Note: The President spoke at 3:19 p.m. in the East Room at the White 
House. In his remarks, he referred to Mayor Kwame M. Kilpatrick of 
Detroit, MI, son of Representative Carolyn C. Kilpatrick; civil rights 
leader Dorothy Height; and actor Cicely Tyson.