1997 Janet Reno Speech
For Sale:
Long Time Coming: An Insider's Story of the Birmingham Church Bombing that Rocked the World.
Behind the Stained Glass: A History of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church
Until Justice Rolls Down: The Birmingham Church Bombing Case
4 Little Girls: 1998 Spike Lee Documentary
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5 SPEECH OF UNITED STATES ATTORNEY GENERAL
6 JANET RENO
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10 JANUARY 15, 1997
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13 10:30 A.M.
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15 16TH STREET BAPTIST CHURCH
16 BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA
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20 REPORTED BY: ELEANOR S. PICKETT
21 CERTIFIED SHORTHAND REPORTER
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1 JANUARY 15, 1997 10:30 A.M.
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3 MS. RENO: Thank you so much. I am so
4 very honored to be here today at the 16th Street
5 Baptist Church. And, Reverend Hamlin, I want to
6 thank you for making me feel so welcome. Thank
7 you for making me feel so welcome today and at
8 home.
9 I am humbled by the opportunity to
10 speak to you today, a day of such special
11 importance to all this nation, the birth date of
12 Dr. Martin Luther King. I wish every American
13 could spend time, as I have this morning, walking
14 through the Civil Rights Institute across the
15 street reading and rereading some of Dr. King's
16 speeches, hearing them directly as he said them
17 and trying to imagine what those days of April
18 and May and September of 1963 were like.
19 Martin Luther King was a man who saw
20 wrong and never ceased trying to right it. He
21 felt the weight of oppression and he was never
22 ever broken by it. His life embodied and he
23 helped to define the true spirit of this great
24 nation, our quest for justice. And he was able
25 to express his outrage in yearning for justice so
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1 forcefully and so eloquently that he reached into
2 the soul of America and America responded.
3 Dr. King had the strength of spirit to
4 withstand jail and march in the midst of angry
5 racism and he had the courage to battle hate with
6 love. He did all this to bring America together
7 as never before.
8 It was here in Birmingham and here at
9 the 16th Street Baptist Church that America
10 witnessed some of the most heroic efforts and
11 some of the lowest, darkest moments of the civil
12 rights struggle. It was here in this church
13 thirty-four years ago that an ugly, horrible
14 racist attack took the innocent lives of four
15 young girls who were getting ready to participate
16 in their first adult service. They were growing
17 up. I'm honored that Altha Robertson and
18 Commissioner Chris McNair and Ms. McNair and the
19 Collins family are here with us today.
20 Let me say to you today what Dr. King
21 said thirty-four years ago. Death is not an end
22 for these girls. They are living still in our
23 memory and their power still moves us.
24 It was from this very church earlier in
25 that same year that thousands of young people,
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1 children really, assembled for a nonviolent
2 demonstration and they went to jail to protest
3 segregation. The next day when more students and
4 adults went to demonstrate, Bull Connor let loose
5 his dogs, his clubs and his hoses right outside
6 here in Kelly Ingram Park. We walked across that
7 park this morning to imagine what it was like
8 then and to see what it has become is a monument
9 to Dr. King and to the people of Birmingham who
10 care and will not stop in their quest for
11 liberty, for justice and in the efforts to bring
12 this nation together.
13 Those demonstrations broke the back of
14 segregation in Birmingham and helped America come
15 together. These are there to remind us of the
16 courage of ordinary citizens who daily met with
17 hateful, hateful prejudice. These are to remind
18 us of what one person can do, young or old,
19 student or preacher. Each one of us can make a
20 difference.
21 Martin Luther King was right when he
22 said that one day the South will recognize its
23 real heroes. One of those real heroes here in
24 Birmingham was Arthur Shores who died just late
25 last year. As one of the only African-American
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1 practicing attorneys in Alabama in the 1940s, Mr.
2 Shores was a lone voice in the wilderness
3 defending the civil rights of his people. He
4 played a critical role during the '60s when he
5 represented Dr. King and Fred Shuttlesworth. Dr.
6 King, Arthur Shores, so many others, children,
7 all are true heroes in the struggle for freedom
8 and for civil rights for all in this country.
9 They did so much to eliminate discrimination and
10 hatred and to bring America together, but we must
11 carry on.
12 There is today, as we try to carry on,
13 real disagreement about what civil rights in
14 today's world really means. There are some who
15 think that we have gone too far, who think that
16 we have already achieved the aims of the civil
17 rights movement. I say that's not so. There are
18 others who challenge the value and the fairness
19 of the remedies of the civil rights movement.
20 Some Americans, including some minorities, now
21 question whether integration is still a valid
22 goal. I fear that what national consensus we
23 have on civil rights may be at the risk of
24 unravelling. And efforts to divide us along racial
25 lines for political advantage or worse leave many
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1 wondering whether we'll move forward or slip
2 backward in our common struggle for equal
3 opportunity and fundamental fairness for every
4 single American.
5 I say that we will move forward. I see
6 the city of Birmingham saying we will move
7 forward. We will not let be undone what those
8 heroes in those days of the '60s worked so hard
9 and gave their lives and support for this
10 nation.
11 But as we move forward, it is not
12 enough to dismiss every criticism as
13 mean-spirited racism or narrow-minded ignorance.
14 We need to examine ourselves and our world with a
15 critical eye and an open mind. We have to ask
16 the difficult questions and attempt to answer
17 them. We must talk openly about race relations
18 in this country. We must talk with respect, we
19 must listen with a listening ear, we must get rid
20 of the angry rhetoric that has so marked this
21 issue in so many instances of late.
22 We know that not all our ills are
23 explained by racism and other bias, but we also
24 know that hate and prejudice and intolerance and
25 discrimination still persist today and we can't
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1 tolerate that.
2 Our challenge is to remind ourselves of
3 our common interests, our common ground and to
4 remind ourselves of our common dreams. At
5 bottom, the needs of those in the black
6 community, the Hispanic community, the
7 Asian-American community are all the same as
8 those in the white community. Everyone wants a
9 healthy start for their children, a stable and
10 crime-free neighborhood, quality education,
11 supportive families and decent work
12 opportunities. And remember that it was blacks
13 and Hispanics and Asian-Americans and whites who
14 fought so hard and some who gave their lives to
15 defend this nation against the dark forces of
16 tyranny as we saw in the moving ceremony this
17 week when the seven brave solders were finally
18 properly recognized.
19 We must recognize and reaffirm the ties
20 that bind us and understand that we can't solve
21 the problems of crime, of terrorism, of disease,
22 of poverty in isolation each from the other. We
23 must recognize our common humanity and by
24 listening closely and reaching out to each other,
25 we will find that there are ways to bring us
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1 together even more closely to bridge the
2 differences that improperly separate us and to
3 reaffirm our commitment to civil rights in
4 America. We have much to do. For too often we
5 live in our insular worlds with each of us
6 enforcing our own voluntary racial separation.
7 We pass each other on the streets or in the
8 shopping mall, but we don't connect as
9 individuals. We work together or we go to school
10 together and we don't connect as individuals.
11 A 1995 Washington Post poll found that
12 virtually half of those surveyed did not feel it
13 was important that different racial or ethnic
14 groups should live, go to school or work together
15 so long as they were treated fairly. But this
16 attitude comes dangerously close to the separate
17 but equal doctrine that was so rightly rejected
18 in Brown versus Board of Education. With this
19 separation, we risk a lack of understanding of
20 and appreciation for the views and the
21 perspectives of others. We risk not learning of
22 wonderful racial, ethnic and cultural traditions
23 that make this country strong. Dr. King knew
24 that you could eliminate legal segregation and
25 still not achieve integration. True integration
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1 he believed would be achieved by true neighbors.
2 This week especially, but in all weeks
3 -- my mother said you should never celebrate
4 Mother's Day because every day should be Mother's
5 Day. But this week especially I would ask each
6 one of us to reach out across racial differences
7 to someone you work with or go to school with but
8 really don't know. This weekend visit a church
9 or temple with a different congregation so that
10 this Sunday morning is not, in Dr. King's word,
11 the most segregated hour in America. Take these
12 small steps in our efforts to rebuild a sense of
13 community where diversity is valued and
14 intolerance is unacceptable. But we must do more
15 by reaching out to help others regardless of race
16 or ethnic background to reweave the fabric of
17 community around us all.
18 Recently I spent a Saturday working for
19 Habitat for Humanity. By the end of the day,
20 blacks, whites, and Cuban-Americans had paint on
21 their face, plaster in their hair and a new
22 spirit in their hearts. Each of us can reach out
23 to lend a hand, lift a spirit and bring America
24 together.
25 President Clinton has made it a
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1 cornerstone of his agenda for the next term to
2 unify the nation around its core values. He has
3 pledged to bring us together, to bring the
4 diverse strands of our people together and to
5 foster an environment of reconciliation and
6 mutual respect. The part says revolution, but
7 the final word is reconciliation. These values
8 are at the heart of civil rights and shape our
9 civil rights agendas for the next term.
10 In this past year, we have seen a clear
11 example of the challenges we still face to
12 protect our civil rights and to eliminate hatred
13 from this land. The senseless rash of church
14 burnings that have victimized and traumatized
15 congregations and communities has stirred the
16 national conscience. Any sort of desecration of
17 any place of worship is among the most despicable
18 crimes, reaching to the most deeply felt of all
19 American tenets, freedom of religion. But the
20 destruction particularly by fire of an
21 African-American church resonates especially
22 deeply in this country, harkening back to the
23 bleak period when the bombing here at the 16th
24 Street Baptist Church was one of many. And it is
25 for these and many more reasons that the
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1 President has made it a top priority to prosecute
2 those responsible for these origins, to prevent
3 future damages of houses of worship and to help
4 communities and congregations in their efforts to
5 rebuild.
6 We have deployed over two hundred ATF
7 and FBI investigations around the country to
8 investigate these arsons. The National Church
9 Arson Task Force is co-chaired by Assistant
10 Attorney General Deval Patrick and Assistant
11 Treasury Secretary James Johnson, and it has
12 responded to these crimes by bringing together as
13 partners the FBI, the ATF, Justice Department
14 prosecutors, the United States attorneys have
15 done such a wonderful job, the Community
16 Relations Service, the Marshal Services in
17 partnership with state and local law
18 enforcement. We are committed to expending the
19 necessary resources, the time and the effort to
20 solve these crimes, and we are going to keep on
21 working on it until we bring the people
22 responsible for these desecrations to justice.
23 But there is a tremendous difference
24 between the fires thirty years ago and those of
25 today. Church attacks then had the support of
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1 too many people in the community. Today the
2 reaction across this nation has been universal
3 outrage. These attacks are rightly seen as a
4 threat to our common sense of sanctuary. These
5 fires have also generated a tremendous response
6 from our community, solidarity among followers of
7 many faiths, donations of money, church robes,
8 hymnals, pews and pianos, countless volunteers to
9 help in rebuilding and preventing further
10 tragedy.
11 It is a wonderful experience to hear a
12 young teenager talk with pride of her trip to the
13 South to help rebuild one of the churches
14 attacked and to hear her talk of the welcome that
15 she was given by that community.
16 This past year I traveled down a little
17 old dirt road in South Carolina with the
18 President to see the site of a church that was
19 burned, only a magnificent oak tree which had
20 half covered the church still stood. But then we
21 went further down that road to dedicate the new
22 church. The people of that community, black and
23 white, came together to speak out against the
24 hatred that had spawned that fire. Haters are
25 cowards. When they are confronted, they will
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1 often back down. It is so important for all
2 America to speak with one voice and consistently
3 against the hate and the bigotry that is
4 sometimes in our midst.
5 And there is a common thread through
6 this nation. As I turned and walked off the
7 platform after the church dedication, a woman
8 burst through the lines and came up and gave me a
9 big hug and said, "Hello, Janet. I used to live
10 in Miami. You got me child support. And I want
11 you to see the two young men you got child
12 support for. And they are taller than me."
13 Our experience with church fires shows
14 us at the very same time how much we have
15 achieved and yet how much, much more we have to
16 do. Yes, we have seen remarkable progress in our
17 efforts to bridge the gap between our ideals and
18 the harsh reality of the daily experience of many
19 citizens. Our national journey has taken us from
20 segregated classrooms to integrated ones, from
21 Jim Crow laws to civil rights laws for women,
22 minorities and persons with disabilities, from
23 literacy tests for voting to minority
24 representation here in Alabama at every level of
25 government, including the mayor of Birmingham and
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1 Congressman Hilliard in the Alabama Congressional
2 Delegation. And the political inclusion that has
3 been brought about by the Voting Rights Act has
4 led to so much in our progress.
5 Just today the federal government is
6 announcing additional resources to preserve the
7 historic Selma-to-Montgomery trail that Dr. King
8 and others marched along to dramatize the need
9 for the Voting Rights Act.
10 We have come a long way, but thirty
11 years after the passage of the Voting Rights Act
12 and forty years after Brown versus Board of
13 Education, racial prejudice and the corrosive
14 effects of discrimination are still with us.
15 We cannot say that we have completed
16 our journey when even today blacks and Hispanics
17 and in many cases women still have a harder time
18 of getting into college, renting an apartment,
19 getting a job or obtaining a loan.
20 We have not completed our journey when
21 the unemployment rate for black males is still
22 twice as high as it is for white males. Even
23 college-educated black, Hispanic, Asian-American
24 men and women of every race and ethnic background
25 are paid less than comparably educated,
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1 comparably trained white men. That's not right.
2 These problems are doubly difficult for
3 black and Hispanic men and women who also have
4 disabilities. Worst of all, reports of violent
5 hate crimes against minorities and gays and
6 lesbians are disturbingly high. If some of the
7 church fires are any indication, hate itself has
8 become more brazen.
9 We have changed our laws, but we have
10 not always changed our ways. Old habits die
11 hard. Attitudes evolve slowly. We must do more,
12 much more to open the doors of opportunity so
13 that every American can share in and fully
14 contribute to America's magnificent bounty.
15 The Department of Justice is committed
16 to our mission which is, simply stated, to
17 enforce the civil rights laws of this nation as
18 vigorously and as faithfully as possible without
19 fear or favor. I care so deeply about this
20 mission which is one of the highest priorities of
21 the Department of Justice. I'm one of the most
22 fortunate people in the world in this last term
23 to have Deval Patrick as the Assistant Attorney
24 General in charge of the Civil Rights Division.
25 He is one of the finest people I have ever known
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1 and one of the great public servants I have ever
2 had the opportunity to work with.
3 He will be leaving at the end of this
4 month to return to Boston to be with his family,
5 and I think this nation, and I know I will, will
6 miss his leadership, his vision, his intelligence
7 and his courage.
8 The Division, the Civil Rights
9 Division, had a reception for him yesterday and
10 they promised him that they would not let our
11 efforts to enforce the civil rights laws of this
12 country be diminished in any way. And I think
13 that's going to be their ultimate tribute to
14 Deval Patrick.
15 We will be ever vigilant and ever
16 forceful in bringing our cases, and I would like
17 to highlight four areas which reflect our
18 commitment to combating discrimination and to
19 building trust and understanding among all
20 Americans.
21 First is fair housing and fair lending,
22 including business lending. Second is employment
23 and affirmative action. Third is education. And
24 fourth is the building of trust between law
25 enforcement and the minority community.
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1 In the next four years, I want to
2 expand on our success in the area of fair lending
3 and fair housing. Home ownership has profound
4 significance in this country, and it is still at
5 the center of the American dream. Yet many
6 Americans are kept from that dream when they
7 can't get a home mortgage and when they are
8 denied home mortgages or property insurance on
9 account of their race or national origin.
10 For years, disparities were explained
11 in the industry as being justified solely by
12 differences in creditworthiness. But the studies
13 over the last several years have too often proved
14 that explanation is flat and simply wrong.
15 Black and Hispanic applicants for loans
16 are being denied financing at a much greater rate
17 than white applicants with virtually identical
18 qualifications. Some banks have simply not done
19 business in minority neighborhoods, while others
20 charge higher rates or add extra charges to their
21 loans in minority areas.
22 We have used a two-prong approach to
23 address this problem. First we have worked with
24 the banking industry that wants to do right to
25 reform their practices, and, secondly, for those
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1 who thumbed their noses, we have sued them and we
2 are going to do whatever is necessary.
3 We are not asking banks to make bad
4 loans. We are telling them that there is some
5 business there that's good business that should
6 not have been rejected on the grounds of race or
7 national origin. And we are working with them to
8 train their employees in practices and procedures
9 that ensure that there is no discrimination. The
10 results of these efforts have been remarkable in
11 a very short period of time.
12 In part due to what we have done and
13 due in part to other factors, we have expanded
14 the availability of loans to minorities. Between
15 1992 and 1995, the numbers of home loans to
16 minorities grew more than one hundred percent,
17 twice the growth rate for home loans generally.
18 Here in Alabama, the number of home loans to
19 minority borrowers increased one hundred and
20 twenty-two percent from 1992 to 1995, nearly
21 three times the increase in lending to borrowers
22 in the Alabama market as a whole.
23 We are also increasing our fair housing
24 activity in Alabama and around the nation. The
25 Civil Rights Division sent fair housing testers
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1 to Montgomery. Last summer we filed a record-
2 setting one point eight million dollar settlement
3 for housing discrimination against the owner of a
4 number of apartment complexes in Mobile. We also
5 work closely with fair housing groups that
6 recently have been established in Birmingham and
7 Montgomery. This type of work is taking place
8 across the country. We will continue to try to
9 eliminate discrimination in the housing and
10 lending market so that all Americans can pursue
11 their dream of home ownership.
12 I want to expand our fair lending work
13 into the area of business lending. Access to
14 capital is one of the most formidable barriers to
15 the formation and development of minority
16 businesses. Several studies have shown that
17 minority applicants for business loans are more
18 likely to be rejected, and when accepted, receive
19 smaller loan amounts than white applicants with
20 identical borrowing credentials. One recent
21 Colorado study found that African-Americans were
22 three times more likely to be rejected for
23 business loans than whites, and that Hispanic
24 owners were one and a half times more likely to
25 be denied a business loan. That's not right, and
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1 the Department of Justice is exploring ways that
2 we can effectively confront discrimination in
3 this arena.
4 In the next four years we will oppose
5 efforts to limit our ability as a society to
6 address unequal opportunity in the economy. We
7 must do more to tap the inherent potential in
8 every one of our citizens. For far too many, the
9 promise of economic opportunity has a very hollow
10 ring. All too often we learn of blatant
11 discriminatory conduct in the employment context,
12 discrimination based on race, gender or sexual
13 orientation. But also there are more subtle
14 influences of subjective factors making it more
15 likely that we will hire and promote others like
16 us with whom we may feel more comfortable.
17 Social ties are often more important than actual
18 experience and qualifications.
19 Some of the starkest evidence of this
20 type of behavior comes from testing studies where
21 white males receive fifty percent more job offers
22 than minorities with the same qualifications
23 applying for the same job. And the report of the
24 Glass Ceiling Commission demonstrates that once
25 minorities are in the workplace, their
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1 advancement is often hampered by discrimination.
2 The EEOC is the prime federal agency
3 that sues over employment discrimination in the
4 private sector. The Justice Department has
5 responsibility over discrimination by public
6 employers. But it is important to have a clear
7 picture of discrimination in the workplace so
8 that it can be addressed by the government as a
9 whole.
10 The reality of current and ongoing
11 discrimination was at the very heart of the
12 President's decision to continue to support
13 affirmative action.
14 In July of 1995, the President made
15 clear that as a nation, we will not abandon our
16 commitment to equal opportunity. But he also
17 made clear that we need to refine the tool of
18 affirmative action so that it can be used fairly
19 and effectively to help our society achieve its
20 goal of integration and the elimination of
21 discrimination. He said that we needed to mend,
22 not end, affirmative action.
23 At the same time, the Supreme Court
24 ruled in the Adarand case that when the federal
25 government uses affirmative action, it has to do
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1 so in an especially careful way. But in writing
2 for the court, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor
3 recognized the unhappy persistence of both the
4 practice and the lingering effects of racial
5 discrimination against minority groups. She
6 confirmed that under the constitution, government
7 has an obligation to address it and we will not
8 shirk from that obligation.
9 This is one reason why we think
10 California's Proposition 209, which establishes a
11 sweeping ban on affirmative action in the state,
12 is both unconstitutional and bad policy. It
13 would prevent local jurisdictions and state
14 agencies from recognizing the need for
15 additional, well-fashioned affirmative action
16 measures to overcome the effects of past
17 discrimination and bring minorities into the
18 economic mainstream. It would prevent victims of
19 racial discrimination and gender discrimination
20 from obtaining relief from local governments and
21 state agencies short of amending the state
22 constitution.
23 By singling out race and gender for
24 this distortion of the ordinary political
25 process, Proposition 209 denies equal protection
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1 of the laws. A federal judge just enjoined the
2 state from implementing the California
3 initiative. We agree with the court, and the
4 Department of Justice will defend that decision.
5 It is also why efforts in Congress to
6 curtail affirmative action by the federal
7 government are misguided and counterproductive
8 towards our efforts of bringing this nation
9 together and ensuring liberty and equality for
10 all.
11 The Justice Department in light of the
12 Adarand decision is already making certain that
13 federal government programs now in place are fair
14 and flexible and meet the constitutional standard
15 described by Justice O'Connor. And the President
16 and I will continue to oppose at every step of
17 the way any wholesale ban on affirmative action
18 in federal law.
19 I recognize that there are those who
20 believe that affirmative action is unfair. They
21 feel that they are being forced to pay for
22 others' past sins and that affirmative action
23 gives special preferences to minority groups and
24 women. However, the fact that many minorities
25 and women are still struggling at the bottom of
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1 the economic ladder suggests that this criticism
2 misses the mark. Society's reality belies all
3 the purported special treatment for minorities.
4 Concerns about affirmative action must be
5 addressed, but all too often these concerns are
6 based on misperceptions about what the programs
7 are all about. The abuses can and will be
8 fixed. But when affirmative action is done
9 right, there are no quotas, there are no
10 preferences for the unqualified, and the programs
11 end when the objectives have been achieved. When
12 affirmative action is done right, it ensures
13 equal opportunity. When affirmative action is
14 done right, it corrects for the effects of both
15 past and continuing discrimination. And when
16 affirmative action is done right, it is an
17 important tool in reaching our goal of an America
18 coming together. Because of our efforts to
19 eliminate discrimination and provide equal
20 opportunity to all, our nation's workplaces are
21 much more diverse than they ever were and our
22 nation's economy is stronger for the effort.
23 Of course, equal opportunity in the
24 economic sphere can only be achieved if our
25 citizens are prepared to take advantage of these
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1 opportunities. In the next four years, the civil
2 rights agenda must also include ensuring that
3 educational institutions are equally accessible
4 to women and to minorities.
5 As a nation, we have made great strides
6 in broadening opportunities in higher education.
7 Just since 1990, the numbers of Hispanics
8 enrolled in colleges and universities has
9 increased by thirty-five percent, Asian-Americans
10 by thirty-five percent; and since 1990,
11 African-Americans' enrollment in higher education
12 has increased by sixteen percent. The number of
13 minorities graduating from colleges and
14 universities is also rising, and that benefits
15 all America for that fuels the economy, provides
16 the people with skills who can run this engine
17 that fuels the economy that maintains this nation
18 as a great nation.
19 Greater integration has meant a better
20 education for all of the students involved.
21 Education depends on dialogue, not just between
22 students and teacher, but between the student and
23 his or her classmates. For over twenty years,
24 our laws have recognized the important value of
25 diversity in education.
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1 Last year, however, a federal appeals
2 court in Texas ruled that this is no longer good
3 law. This is the Hopwood case which ruled that
4 diversity did not justify affirmative action in
5 education. We disagree strongly with that
6 decision. The Supreme Court declined to take the
7 case on procedure grounds, so the issue is still
8 an open one. We continue to believe that if the
9 setting in which the students learn looks more
10 like the world, their education will be better
11 and stronger and prepare them better for the
12 future.
13 It may also be useful to ask, what do
14 we mean when we say someone is qualified or more
15 qualified for admission to college or to graduate
16 school. We are making judgments about people
17 before they have really had a chance to do
18 anything. Education is the first rung on the
19 ladder of opportunity. Getting an education is
20 how you get ahead. And I just don't think it
21 makes sense to deny that chance to someone based
22 solely on a one size fits all test. You have to
23 look, not just at test scores, but at what that
24 individual will bring to that school and to that
25 community and to this nation and you have to look
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1 at what the benefits of integration will bring to
2 society as a whole.
3 Let me give you just one example of a
4 broader view of merit and the benefits of
5 diversity. A study of University of California
6 Medical School graduates examined where doctors
7 practiced after graduation. A much higher
8 percentage of minority graduates than white
9 graduates practiced in areas that were
10 underserved by the medical profession. Because
11 that medical school is diverse, California has
12 better medical care.
13 Abraham Lincoln said that a house
14 divided cannot stand and that a nation divided
15 cannot stand. I believe so strongly that we
16 cannot have a divided nation, one exposed to
17 education and the other not. We have to do more
18 so that every student has access to education.
19 Because that young man who is the first in his
20 family to go to college will likely become a
21 father, and his son or daughter and this nation
22 will be the beneficiaries.
23 We must also reemphasize quality in
24 education as well as racial integration as goals
25 of the post-Brown struggle. A place in an
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1 integrated classroom is worth having only if it
2 provides our children with a true opportunity to
3 learn. We have to do more to address the
4 inequality among the schools in our communities
5 for it is unfortunately true that because of
6 economic inequality, many predominantly minority
7 schools tend to receive much inferior resources
8 than those received by predominantly white
9 schools. We need to find ways to develop and to
10 finance city school systems that will keep
11 families, both black and white, in the public
12 school and give them an education that will help
13 them meet the challenges of this next exciting
14 century of the information age.
15 These are daunting challenges. But if
16 forty years ago those children and their parents
17 in Topeka, Kansas and in Little Rock, Arkansas
18 and Clarendon County, South Carolina had the
19 strength and the courage to face down an
20 intractable establishment, hell bent on
21 segregation, then I am not ready to say that
22 today's challenges are beyond our grasp, and I
23 don't think America is either.
24 Another crucial item on the agenda for
25 the next four years is an effort to build a
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1 greater sense of community and trust between law
2 enforcement and the minority community. There is
3 no other area where the potential for
4 misunderstanding and miscommunication can have
5 such dangerous consequences. Just in the past
6 year, we have seen in St. Petersburg the danger
7 of pent-up frustrations and a breakdown in
8 community relations. And yet, at the same time,
9 we must recognize that minorities are
10 disproportionately victims of crime. Nothing is
11 more important than a safe environment. The
12 quality of the school a child attends will matter
13 less if she is not safe in getting there or while
14 she is at school. So it is an absolute
15 imperative that we establish better trust,
16 cooperation and communication between the
17 community and the police.
18 There are several ways we can set about
19 doing that. First, through community policing,
20 we bring law enforcement to the neighborhood
21 level. We have police officers who are committed
22 to serve the community, who reach out to the
23 neighbors, who involve them in identifying the
24 problems in the community and establishing
25 priorities and in working together to achieve
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1 solutions. That police officer, rather than
2 creating division, reaches out to build trust.
3 He becomes the mentor. The elderly woman who
4 would not walk out from behind her door because
5 she is afraid now walks down to the community
6 center to tell people what she thinks should be
7 done, and we see communities coming together when
8 community police reach out in thoughtfulness and
9 respect and involve the people of this country in
10 building security for us all.
11 Second we must continue to encourage
12 diversity and understanding in all law
13 enforcement. In years past, too many police
14 departments had no black or Hispanic officers,
15 few had women officers. Now we have not just men
16 in blue, but women in blue. Not just whites, but
17 people of all colors. People who patrol the
18 neighborhoods they grew up in, people who know
19 the languages spoken there, men and women our
20 youth can look up to as role models. And these
21 police officers are teaching each other how to
22 value and to appreciate the diversity and the
23 wonder of the tradition of the neighbors they
24 serve.
25 Third, we must continue our vigorous
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1 enforcement of civil rights laws. This must be
2 combined with additional effective training
3 efforts.
4 There are approximately six hundred
5 ninety thousand law enforcement officers in this
6 country. The vast majority are honest, hard
7 working and law abiding. They put their lives on
8 the line every day for us in the pursuit of
9 justice. Yet police chiefs and rank and file
10 officers alike tell me to maintain the confidence
11 in the community, we must take decisive action
12 against those few officers who abuse their power
13 and deny citizens their constitutional rights by
14 use of excessive force or harassment. The
15 Department of Justice plays a crucial role here
16 through the use of civil rights prosecutions and
17 criminal sanctions, and we will use our criminal
18 and civil authority when the evidence and when
19 the law justifies it and we will pursue each
20 allegation. But at the same time we are working
21 with law enforcement agencies in training
22 programs that teach officers how to better serve
23 their community, how to involve the community and
24 how to make a difference.
25 So we have come a long way since Dr.
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1 King reached into the soul of America, challenged
2 its conscience and brought us together as never
3 before. But at the same time, hate,
4 discrimination and intolerance still raised their
5 heads and efforts to divide us rise up.
6 We must today and every day rededicate
7 ourselves to meeting Dr. King's challenge, his
8 challenge to our conscience to seek freedom,
9 liberty and justice for all, to come together as
10 one nation while cherishing the racial and ethnic
11 traditions and cultures that make this nation so
12 wonderfully and so magnificently diverse. To
13 some it is tempting in an uncertain and rapidly
14 changing world in economy to turn inward to
15 protect what they have and to let others fend for
16 themselves. Others just throw up their hands and
17 say I'm just one person, I can't make a
18 difference. But Americans throughout this nation
19 are making a difference as they reach out. Here
20 in Birmingham this morning you can feel the
21 excitement as people look on your city, a tiny
22 new city rising around the park. They took at
23 their history and build on the history to make
24 sure that what happened in 1963 will never happen
25 again. They are coming together to give children
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1 a future, to bring people out from behind closed
2 doors, to involve America in the process of
3 community and to provide the glue that brings us
4 together.
5 In Dorchester, Massachusetts, I stand
6 with religious leaders and young African-American
7 students and white police officers as they have
8 joined together to significantly reduce the
9 incidence of youth violence in that community.
10 Now some of you may say but I'm too
11 old, I can't make a difference. Remember the
12 eighty-four-year-old man who once stood up in a
13 meeting and said do you know how old I am and
14 what I do three mornings a week? I'm eighty-four
15 and I volunteer as a teacher's aide. And the
16 young woman next to him stood up and said I'm the
17 first grade teacher for whom he volunteers. And
18 the children with learning disability can't wait
19 for their time with him because he has the
20 patience of Job and those who are gifted can't
21 wait for their time with him because he
22 challenges them far beyond what I can with the
23 number in my class.
24 Come with me to dispute resolution
25 programs in Washington, D. C. public schools
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1 where white and black students are learning to
2 live together where they're working together to
3 resolve the disputes without knives and guns and
4 fists. Come with me across this country and you
5 will see so much of America coming together and
6 reaching out and making a difference in making
7 this a more peaceful nation that is together.
8 Take part and take hope.
9 But remember the children of
10 Birmingham, remember those four girls, and let us
11 focus for this next time on the children of
12 America, the right to a mortgage, the right to
13 equal opportunity for a home. Equal opportunity
14 for an education won't mean very much if that
15 young person does not live to seize that
16 opportunity. Let us come together as one nation
17 to say that we will stop youth violence in this
18 nation. We will stop youth killing. We will
19 work together to give them their foundation in
20 which they can grow as strong, constructive human
21 beings. This nation is coming together to do
22 that.
23 You can hear Dr. King telling us we're
24 not moving fast enough. Let us walk out of here
25 today and think of what each one of us can do to
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1 make a difference in the lives of all Americans
2 and in the name of the children who walked out
3 the door of this church or the children who died
4 here, let us give all American children a future
5 of peace, of liberty, of freedom, and of justice
6 for all.
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8 END OF SPEECH
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1 CERTIFICATE OF REPORTER
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5 STATE OF ALABAMA)
6 JEFFERSON COUNTY)
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10 I, Eleanor S. Pickett, the officer
11 before whom the foregoing speech was taken, do
12 hereby certify that the foregoing speech was
13 taken by me to the best of my ability and
14 thereafter reduced to typewriting under my
15 direction.
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18 Notary Public in and for
19 the State of Alabama
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23 My commission expires: April 1997
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