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Withdrawal/Redaction Sheet
Clinton Library
DOCUMENT NO.
SUBJECT/TITLE
DATE
RESTRICTION
AND TYPE
001. memo
Melanne Verveer to the President [partial] (2 pages)
11/22/2000
b(6)
COLLECTION:
Clinton Presidential Records
Speechwriting
Josh Gottheimer
OA/Box Number: 24509
FOLDER TITLE:
Citizens Medal
2016-0201-S
rc2185
RESTRICTION CODES
Presidential Records Act - |44 U.S.C. 2204(a)|
Freedom of Information Act - 15 U.S.C. 552(b)]
P1 National Security Classified Information [(a)(1) of the PRA
b(1) National security classified information |(b)(1) of the FOIA]
P2 Relating to the appointment to Federal office |(a)(2) of the PRAJ
b(2) Release would disclose internal personnel rules and practices of
P3 Release would violate a Federal statute |(a)(3) of the PRA]
an agency |(b)(2) of the FOIA]
P4 Release would disclose trade secrets or confidential commercial or
b(3) Release would violate a Federal statute |(b)(3) of the FOIA]
financial information ((a)(4) of the PRA|
h(4) Release would disclose trade secrets or confidential or financial
P5 Release would disclose confidential advice between the President
information [(b)(4) of the FOIA]
and his advisors, or between such advisors [a)(5) of the PRA]
b(6) Release would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of
P6 Release would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of
personal privacy [(b)(6) of the FOIA]
personal privacy |(a)(6) of the PRA
b(7) Release would disclose information compiled for law enforcement
purposes |(b)(7) of the FOIA]
C. Closed in accordance with restrictions contained in donor's deed
h(8) Release would disclose information concerning the regulation of
of gift.
financial institutions |(b)(8) of the FOIA]
PRM. Personal record misfile defined in accordance with 44 U.S.C.
b(9) Release would disclose geological or geophysical information
2201(3).
concerning wells |(b)(9) of the FOIA]
RR. Document will be reviewed upon request.
JOSH GOTTHEIMER BOX #18
Citizens Medal
Social Progress-New Hampshire event
Carpenters Union
Post-Election Speeches (2000)
Economy statistics
Web
Churches
Assorted notes
Pageant of Peace/Staff farewell
Ernest Gaines
Earl Shorris
Ned McWherter/Arthritis
Library/web
Talking Points- People for the American Way
Talking Points- California
Record book
Rolodex
Also:
, Doves, NH
- Race
(Ltiert redult
Jan 8 of
PHOTOCOPY
PRESERVATION
OTOCOPY
3 N.
MUHAMMAD ALI
POTUS:
It is, therefore, altogether fitting that you would give your first One America Award to Muhammad Ali. In the ring,
he captured the imagination of the world with his distinctive fighting style. Before and after the fights, he captured
the imagination of the world with his distinctive speaking style. He's the first fighter ever to win the heavyweight title
three times. But outside the ring and what he's done since, in my mind, are even more impressive: his work for
children and feeding the hungry and dedicating his life to his faith and his fellow human beings.
I am sure I'm not alone when I say that 4 years ago when Muhammad Ali lit the Olympic Torch in Atlanta, it was
one of the greatest personal thrills I have ever had as an American citizen, and I thank you, sir.
And, of course, he didn't do it alone. In his corner for more than four decades was tonight's other nominee, his
trainer, the great Angelo Dundee. Truly, this Italian-American/African-American team symbolizes the one America
you believe in. They are an inspiration for the one America we all still have to build.
The last thing I want to say about the future is -- and maybe the most fundamental lesson. we'll have to teach
ourselves in this election, because we'll make this decision clearly, consciously, or inadvertently is that we have
got to make a decision to go forward together. I think the most touching moments in the Olympics opening for most
of us was when they called all those athletes up on the stage and the Olympics let Greg Louganis stand up there as a
hero and said we're not excluding people because they're HIV-positive or because somebody may not like them.
They brought a 97-year-old man up who was dancing a jig, and they wanted to make the point that being healthy is a
good thing for older people and maybe even better than for younger people. And then they let Muhammad Ali,
purging the ghost of the Vietnam war and his conversion to Islam and everything he ever did that was controversial,
standing there in the courage of dealing with his disease with dignity, fight the flame. And just about everybody I
know had a tear In their eye when that happened. But that whole show was about how we're stronger when we're
together than when were looking for ways to be divided.
Muhammad Ali may be the most widely recognized athlete in the world. He captured the imagination of the world
with his distinctive fighting style and with the exhilarating fights he took to places all over the globe. He was the first
fighter in history to win the heavyweight title three times. He was a loud, proud poet who told the world he was the
greatest and was poetry in motion when he floated around the ring. Sometimes when his opponents couldn't hit him,
it was hard to tell whether he was boxing or doing ballet.
He was just as courageous and dignified and mesmerizing a challenger as he was a champion. And he's a man who
has unfailing stood by his principles and his beliefs. It was written of him that he spoke of God before his fights; he
spoke of man; he spoke of hungry children. He cared about the sick and the old. He raised the game to drama. And
because he stood for something greater, the people who climbed upon their chairs for him felt that they stood, too,
for something greater. Congratulations, Muhammad Ali.
BIO:
The colorful and controversial Ali began taking boxing lessons when he was twelve years old at the urging of a
Louisville policeman he talked to after his bike was stolen. As a high school student, he won the national Golden
Gloves middleweight championship in 1959 and 1960 and the AAU national light heavyweight title in 1960, then
went on to a gold medal in the Olympic light heavyweight division.
Under his given name, Cassius Clay, he had his first professional fight on October 29, 1960. Before his sixth
professional bout, against Lamar Clark on April 19, 1961, Clay predicted a 2nd-round knockout and was right. He
continued making predictions, often in rhyme, and making them come true until March 13, 1963. On that date, he
won a questionable 10-round decision over Doug Jones after predicting a 4th-round knockout.
Clay was a heavy underdog when he met Sonny Liston for the heavyweight championship on February 25, 1964, at
Miami Beach, FL. But he won the fight when Liston failed to come out for the 8th round, claiming a shoulder injury.
In a rematch on May 25, 1965, Clay knocked Liston out with a "phantom punch" that few observers saw in the 1st
round at Lewiston, ME.
Shortly after becoming champion, Clay announced that he had become a Black Muslim and changed his name to
301-294-0191 2578720777
Muhammad Ali. He defended the title eight times in the next twenty months. In the meantime, he had refused
induction into the Army. As a result, his license was revoked by the New York State Boxing Commission, his title
was stripped, and he was sentenced to five years in prison for draft evasion.
While the conviction was being appealed, Ali was inactive for more than two years and announced his retirement
early in 1970. He returned to the ring shortly afterward, knocking out Jerry Quarry in the 3rd round on October 26,
1970, at Atlanta. After a court ordered New York to restore his license, he fought the new champion, Joe Frazier, at
Madison Square Garden on March 8, 1971. Frazier won a brutal 15-round fight on a unanimous decision.
The U.S. Supreme Court overturned his conviction on June 29, 1971, and Ali won the North American Boxing
Federation's championship by knocking out Jimmy Ellis in the 12th round less than a month later. He lost it on a 12-
round decision to Ken Norton, regained it by outpointing Norton in 12 rounds, and then beat Frazier on a 12-round
decision to gain a world title fight against George Foreman, who had also beaten Frazier.
Ali knocked Foreman out in the 8th round on October 30, 1974. at Kinshasa, Zaire. in the first heavyweight
championship fight ever held in Africa. He was named fighter of the year by Ring magazine. He and Frazier shared
the 1975 award after their celebrated "Thrilla in Manila" fight on October 1, when Ali won with a 14th-round
knockout.
After ten defenses, Ali lost the title to Leon Spinks on a 12-round decision February 15, 1978, but regained it for a
third time with a 15-round decision on September 15. He then announced his retirement.
He came out of retirement for another championship fight, against Larry Holmes on October 2, 1980. Holmes
knocked him out in the 1 1th round. Ali retired for good after losing a 1981 decision to Trevor Berbick.
"Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee," a phrase coined by corner man Drew "Bundini" Brown, aptly described Ali's
remarkable combination of speed and power during his prime, when he fought at about 210 pounds.
PRESS:
HEADLINE: The fights of their lives: Montreal writer chronicles Muhammad Ali's fight against the draft, which
pitted him against White House, Pentagon and spineless press
BYLINE: JACK TODD
BODY:
Muhammad Ali's Greatest Fight, Cassius Clay VS. The United States of America, By Howard L. Bingham and Max
Wallace, Foreword by Muhammad Ali, M. Evans & Co., 271 pp, $32.95
At the Atlanta Olympics in 1996, the choice of the athlete who would run the final leg of the torch relay to light the
Olympic flame was a carefully guarded secret. Then boxer Evander Holyfield, a native of Atlanta, carried the torch
to the top of the stadium, where he handed it off to Muhammad Ali.
With his hands shaking from the Parkinson's disease that afflicts him, Ali lit the flame to tumultuous applause. There
was hardly a dry eye in the house or among the billions watching on television around the world: America's most
beloved athlete had been chosen for the greatest honour.
The Atlanta Olympics would go steeply downhill from that moment, but on the world stage something extraordinary
had happened - the boxer who was once the most vilified man in America had not only been forgiven since he
refused to be drafted in 1967, he had become an almost universal hero, a man on the verge of sainthood.
Obviously, Ali had come a long way since the late 1960s, when he was persecuted, harassed and very nearly jailed
for acting on his conscience. At Selective Service Headquarters in Houston on April 28, 1967, Ali refused to step
forward for induction into the U.S. army, setting off a chain of events that would lead to the loss of his world
heavyweight championship and his livelihood and to a four-year struggle in the courts that would end in his ultimate
vindication - after he had lost millions of dollars in earnings in the ring.
Montreal writer Max Wallace has done a splendid job of researching the story of Ali's resistance to the draft, based
on the boxer's contention that he was a bona fide minister for the Nation of Islam and as such a conscientious
objector. With illustrations from Ali's longtime friend and photographer Howard Bingham, Wallace chronicles Ali's
greatest fight with such skill that it has all the drama and excitement of a great heavyweight fight which, indeed, is
what it was, with Ali pitted against all the power of the press, the Selective Service, the Pentagon and the White
House.
Ali's decision to refuse induction was the single most significant act of dissent against the Vietnam War. When it
happened, the leading sportswriters of the day disgraced themselves by lining up to vilify him as a coward. Jimmy
Cannon, Red Smith and Arthur Daley all agreed, ignoring the fact that Ali had been offered a cushy job in the service
of his choice, entertaining the troops. If he went to Vietnam at all, it would be to stage boxing exhibitions.
Instead, Ali chose to face a possible five-year prison sentence and the loss of his title and income; no war resister
ever gave up more, none acted with greater courage.
The great British philosopher Bertrand Russell knew what would result: "They will try to break you because you are
a symbol of a force they are unable to destroy," Russell wrote in a letter to Ali, "namely, the aroused consciousness
of a whole people determined no longer to be butchered and debased with fear and oppression."
With no legal justification, the various boxing commissions stripped Ali of his title. Elijah Muhammad and the
Nation of Islam seemed already to have stripped him of most of his money. By age 25, Ali was broke, borrowing
money from a friend in Chicago to buy gasoline. And yet the greatest athlete of the 20th century never wavered:
"I could make millions if I led my people the wrong way, to something I know is wrong. So now I have to make a
decision. Step into a billion dollars and denounce my people or step into poverty and teach them the truth. Damn the
money. Damn the heavyweight championship. I will die before I sell out my people for the white man's money."
Blacks at the time represented 11 per cent of the American population but 30 per cent of the casualties in Vietnam
were black. Black soldiers could fight and die in Vietnam, but they could not hope for equality or justice at home.
Ali's famous statement of dissent went to the core of it: "I ain't got no quarrel with the Viet Cong."
In a last-minute compromise, the Supreme Court would eventually rule in Ali's favour on June 28, 1971, four years
and two months after Ali refused to step forward in Houston. He would return to the ring and win back his title in the
famous Rumble in the Jungle against George Foreman in Zaire. He would never fight a greater or more significant
battle than his fight against the draft.
"All I want is justice," Ali said at one point early in the process. "Will I have to get that from history?" The answer,
by the time Ali lit the torch in Atlanta, was already a thunderous "yes!" The history of that epic struggle is now on the
record.
HEADLINE: People say I've had a full life but I ain't dead yet;
Muhammad Ali doesn't need anyone's pity the punchlines may be slower but he still stands over the world like
a
colossus JEFF POWELL on the courage that has made Muhammad Ali The Greatest
BYLINE: Jeff Powell
BODY:
THE icon worshipped simply and wondrously as The Greatest was in residence at The Savoy. Three starstruck
schoolboys, weaned on their fathers' tales and exhibiting the nimble, elusive footwork that made Muhammad Ali
famous, succeeded in evading the distracted concierge.
Infiltrating Ali's inner sanctum at a private function was proving a less successful manoeuvre, until he recognised
their plight and commanded that they be admitted.
He perched the smallest on his knee, asked his name for the autograph and whispered in his ear: What's my name?'
Mr Ali,' the little chap replied.
Muhammad Ali.' Lucky you,' said Mr Ali with a slow smile and a mischievous twinkle in his eye. There once was a
guy who got that wrong and he had to be punished. The reference to Ernie Tyrell, who insisted unwisely on taunting
Ali by using his former name of Cassius Clay after the champ had turned to Mecca, was lost on an 11-year-old.
But not the scale of the personality nor the immensity of his charm.
Children, to whom he devotes hour upon hour performing magic tricks, hardly notice the trembling of body and
voice which are Ali's legacy from the brutal sport which he graced with a unique beauty.
They look past the outward appearance, seeing only the very essence of his genius and the very human being in all its
enchanting guises.
There is a natural tendency for grownups to regard with sadness this shaking figure who stood over the world - not
just his opponents like a colossus hewn from the rock of immortality.
It is an instinct to be resisted. Ali rejects pity for the impostor he knows it to be.
Waste no sympathy either on him or his wonderful wife Lonnie, who is as happy in her absolute devotion to his
needs as she knows her Muhammad to be within himself.
By way of evidence that the original Ali is still alive, relatively well and functioning inside that handsome head,
consider these after-dinner responses.
When Lonnie finished a speech of thanks for a splendid supper she asked if there were any questions for her or her
husband. The first hand to go up was that of Ali, who asked: What would you have done if you hadn't marrried me?
She answered for all the millions of us who have felt emotionally wedded to the man through the majesty of his
career and the dignity of his suffering: Been bored'.
When pressed to nominate his toughest opponent in all those fights which not only electrified the golden years of the
prize-ring but also excited the entire planet, the reply was immediate.
No, not the Liston monster whom he slew to win his first world title.
No, not the fearsome Foreman with whom he Rumbled in the Jungle of Zaire, absorbing extreme punishment before
reducing Big George to a rope-a-dope to win the heavyweight championship for the second of an unprecedented
three times.
No, not the core battle of his epic trilogy with Joe Frazier, which is generally considered to be the most violent
collision in heavyweight history.
No, none of them was as tough as my first wife,' he said, remembering the exotic Sonji Roi, who was said to have
initiated the young Cassius as a sexual athlete but then failed to cope with his conversion to Islam.
When I asked for whom he would have voted as sportsman of the 20th century seeing that virtually everyone else in
the world has voted for him he raised his eyes to Allah in mock surprise at being obliged to state the obvious,
pointed at his chest and said: Me'.
He floats like a butterfly no longer but still he stings like a bee.
The Louisville Lip may be slower now but the message is as brash and entertaining as ever. It is also more profound,
perhaps, given that this is the man who reigned over the most perilous of sporting realms, yet had the courage to
refuse to fight in Vietnam.
History proved the righteousness of his conscientious objection to the U.S. army draft and he repeats periodically
what he famously told his countrymen at the time: 'I ain't got no quarrel with them Vietcong.
Not one of them ever called me a nigger. 'The N-word proliferated in Louisville when Ali was growing up. When he
found himself still the butt of that epithet on the day he came home from the Rome Olympics as heavyweight
champion, he threw his gold medal into a river.
It has become customary to compliment Ali on the way his vital personality and the deadly poetry of his boxing
transcended sport and elevated him to universal recognition. But it is simplistic.
Ali's fascination is no accident of nature's conjunction of a razor-sharp mind with rapier movement in the ring. He
matured into an intellectual collaborator in the struggle for black equality.
That was his reason for being.
That was the subject of his meetings with Martin Luther King Jnr and Malcolm X. That has been the underlying
agenda of his audiences with presidents and Popes.
That was why he abandoned his 'slave name' of Cassius Marcellus Clay to embrace the Black Muslims.
That is why he dwarfs even Pele and Carl Lewis in the sporting pantheon.
That is why the name of Muhammad Ali is inextricably linked with the momentous events of our times. The story of
the century runs through him.
So, when you ask him what was the greatest day of his 57 years, he says: The day I discovered Islam.' There is no
point shying away from the subject of religion if you are attempting to do justice, however inadequate, to the only
athlete who could even remotely contend with Ghandi, Churchill, Kennedy, Mandela, Luther King et al as the Man
of the Century.
It is in Islam that Ali has found a purpose in life after boxing.
People say I had a full life,' he says. But I ain't dead yet. In truth, my life is really starting. I loved the boxing but it
was only a preparation for the fight - the fight against injustice, racism, poverty, crime and illiteracy. Upon "illiteracy'
he places special emphasis. The poverty of his formal education sent him into the world with minimal reading skills.
For a man articulate in so many languages - those of life, love and the ring to name but a few - that was an
embarrassment.
So when you ask whether he resents his Parkinson's it is necessary to specify either The Syndrome or The Interview.
The one serious blemish on Michael Parkinson's brilliant career was sustained when he exposed Ali's illiteracy for
all to see on British television by handing him a book upside down.
It takes a big man to forgive and they come no bigger than Ali and, anyway, he has greater issues to occupy that
fertile mind.
As he told his most faithful biographers - Thomas Hauser in Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times, and David
Remnick in the more recent King of the World and drives home by repetition: The environment is deteriorating.
There is corruption in government.
Children in Africa are starving.
I'm the only man in history to become famous under two different names.
As the occupier of one of the most recognised faces on earth it is my destiny to help people by bringing to the world
the message that all the hating is wrong. He has brought it home to Louisville, where we assembled three years ago
for the opening of a museum dedicated to the man who once threw that gold medal into their river in disgust.
By delicious irony, it is the Olympic Movement which has made his mission possible. So sensitive was Ali to the
shaking manifestation of his illness that he was living in retreat with Lonnie, definitely the last of his four wives, and
their adopted son, the last of his nine children, at their tranquil farmhouse in Michigan.
The Atlanta Games were eminently forgettable on many counts, but by tempting Ali to light the flame of youth there
they restored a great man to public life.
The previous time I had broken bread with Ali was on the crisp, bright morning when Mike Tyson was released from
his first three years in prison.
We all hurried from the forbidding gates of the ludicrously misnamed Indiana Youth Centre to the nearby
headquarters of the Islamic Society of North America.
Freedom celebrations had been prepared elsewhere but they had to wait.
Tyson, he who defers to no other man, personally and patiently served Ali with his breakfast of chapatis and potato
curry.
The Greatest, indeed, and the athlete of the last 100 years expects to continue exerting his influence into the next
century.
T'm not as fast as I used to be when I switched off the light and made it into bed before the room went dark,' he says.
Instead, God has made me his living reminder that no mere mortal can be Superman.
The absence of any bitterness is as remarkable as everything else about him. His specialists concur that the
Parkinson's was brought on by head trauma, a euphemism for being bludgeoned about the cranium by way of a
profession.
Ali's own diagnosis is that it was more likely the war with Frazier, rather than that gruesome retirement beating from
Larry Holmes, which may have done the damage.
Yet, he remains a persuasive advocate for the violent art he ennobled.
Just when everyone was saying that boxing was dying on its feet, he arrived in London to remind us of its glory.
What would he have been if he hadn't been a boxer?
'A pimp, he replied.
Pugilism remains the impoverished man's escape from the ghetto and this man never forgets that, had he not been the
most gifted giant at the most dangerous game of all, we would never have heard of Cassius Clay, let alone
Muhammad Ali.
As any schoolboy knows, the world would have been immeasurably poorer for that.
HEADLINE: Muhammad Ali
BYLINE: BETTY WINSTON BAYE, THE C-J
SOURCE: STAFF
BODY:
MY FATHER didn't like him initially; lots of people didn't.
My father considered the young man, who was born in Louisville in 1942, as too loud, too stuck on himself.
What kind of man calls himself pretty?
So when my family gathered around a radio on Feb. 25, 1964, for the fight between the brash Louisvillian and Sonny
Liston, my father hoped that Liston would win, especially since the poor man had been tormented for weeks by his
audacious younger opponent.
At every press conference, the young Louisvillian "clowned"; he even made daring predictions about how he was
"gonna whup" Lis-ton.
Like others, my fa-ther hoped that the upstart's big mouth would be closed once and forever. No wonder he was also
known as "The Louisville Lip."
That night in Miami, it was the big, fast talker who shut up his critics. Sonny Liston was defeated, and the world had
a new heavyweight champion.
Several months later, the young man who in 1960 had brought pride to his long-segregated hometown by winning an
Olympic Gold Medal for boxing, did something else that didn't endear him to many. He joined that scary, strange
sect, the "Black Muslims," as followers of Elijah Muhammad then were called. What's more, he changed his name.
Now, some demanded to know, what kind of man was that? Who in his right mind would join up with that nut up in
Harlem, Malcolm X, and in the process disown the name his parents had given him?
But he said he'd no longer respond to the name Cassius Clay. In protest, some insisted on calling him "Cassius," and
his response was not to respond until they called him what he now called himself.
He was a convert to Islam, and his new name was Muhammad Ali.
Even some who didn't quite understand found themselves agreeing that a man ought to have the right to call himself
whatever he wishes to, and people ought to respect that.
Ali was a black man boldly standing up to white power.
He was rapidly ascending as a symbol for a generation's protests. And to be sure, the power structure wasn't done
with him.
Another great black boxer, Floyd Patterson, became, in effect, a stand-in "Great White Hope." However, in 12
rounds on Nov. 22, 1966, Ali shut Patterson up, too.
More people then began saying that this Muhammad Ali must be the genuine article. He must be what he often said
he was, "baaaad!"
Also in 1966, Ali, who had previously been classified unfit for military service, was reclassified A-1, and was
drafted.
He refused induction.
Not only was he a conscientious objector on religious grounds, but Ali audaciously uttered the unthinkable, "No
Vietcong ever called me Nigger."
All hell really did break loose; he had gone too far, and wheels spun into motion. The World Boxing Association
stripped Ali of his title, and he was sentenced to five years in prison as a draft evader.
Not until 1970 was Ali finally vindicated by the U.S. Supreme Court.
By then, he had lost important years for a boxer and plenty of money, too, which convinced even more people that he
was unshakable in his religious and political convictions.
Ali returned to boxing, and subsequently lost to Joe Frazier. Then on Oct. 29, 1974, in the African nation of Zaire,
he stunned the experts by defeating the younger, stronger George Foreman to regain his heavyweight title.
A year later, on Sept. 30, 1975, Ali and Frazier met up again in the Philippines in a match that was billed "The
Thrilla in Manila," and Ali won.
Ali continued making history in his sport. On Sept. 17, 1978, in New Orleans, he defeated Leon Spinks to become
the first to win the heavyweight crown three times.
A fourth attempt was thwarted on Oct. 2, 1980, when Ali was stopped by Larry Holmes, a much younger former
sparring partner.
Amazingly, though Muhammad Ali has been out of boxing for 20 years, he remains one of the world's most beloved
celebrities.
Wherever he goes, boys and girls who weren't born in Ali's heyday swarm and besiege him for photos and
autographs, and he usually accommodates them; sometimes hell do magic tricks.
Now slowed by the ravages of Parkinson's, Muhammad Ali speaks little in public. But he has that old twinkle in his
eyes, and with his wife, Lonnie, almost always by his side, he is busy doing humantarian work here and abroad.
Because he demanded respect, and paid dearly for it - stamping his own profound meaning onto those 1960s protest
signs, "I Am a Man" - Muhammad Ali is my nominee for Kentuckian of the Century.
Even as this is being written, plans are moving along to build a multi- million-dollar facility on Louisville's riverfront
to honor Muhammad Ali. It won't primarily be devoted to his boxing career, planners say, but more to Ali's life after
boxing, and especially his efforts to foster greater tolerance among people of all colors, nationalities and religions.
What a complement a Muhammad Ali Museum will be to the boulevard, a few blocks south, which was renamed in
his honor years ago.
'Ali was a black man boldly standing up to white power.'
51134
THIS
Final 11/10/99 6:00 p.m.
Josh Gottheimer
PRESIDENT WILLIAM J. CLINTON
REMARKS AT RON BROWN BRIDGE BUILDER AWARD
WASHINGTON, D.C.
November 10, 1999
Acknowledgments: Sen. Daschle, Rep. Clyburn, Sec. Herman, FCC Commissioner Susan Ness;
Former Mayor Dinkins; Michael Brown, Alma Brown.
We gather tonight to remember one life and to recognize another with the presentation of
the Ronald H. Brown Bridge Builder Award. As you know, this award is given to an individual
who most exemplifies a lifetime of building bridges bridges of understanding bridges of
opportunity
and bridges between people of different backgrounds.
I want to congratulate tonight's recipient, Solomon D. Trujilo (True-Hee-ho) for
embodying that standard. Throughout Solomon's career, he has forged ties between minority
groups, the business community and the barrio, corporate America and government. And, in
doing so, he has never forgotten where he came from, providing hundreds of opportunities to
men and women from all walks of life. Solomon, Ron Brown would be very proud of you
tonight.
Growing up in Harlem, Ron never forgot where he came from. He spent his lifetime
trying to help others realize their dreams.
non
Ban
As Commerce Secretary, the spent most of his time searching for ways to give more
opportunity to ordinary Americas, to generate jobs for the American economy and build better
futures for American citizens. In the process, he did more to create good jobs by opening new
markets to our products and services than anybody who ever held his position.
The Scripture challenges us to be "doers of the word and not hearers only." Like Ron
Brown, this is a group of doers. The work you do every day lifts up our most precious values.
Deepens freedom. Widens opportunity. That is the best of America.
In the 12 years before Vice President Gore and I came to the White House, irresponsible
policies in Washington piled deficit upon deficit and quadrupled the national debt. Interest rates
and unemployment were high, wages were stagnant, and growth was slow. We believed that
with your help we could get America back on track.
Your efforts have helped get America working again. Look at all we've done together in
the last six and a half years alone. Cutting taxes for 15 million working families by expanding
the Earned Income Tax Credit. Passing the Brady Bill to get guns out of the hands of criminals.
1
We have fought for and won the biggest increase in children's heath care in three
decades. We expanded the Head Start program to help our children get off on the right foot.
With the Family and Medical Leave Act, we have given millions of people the opportunity to
take time off from work to care for an ailing parent or bond with a newborn child.
We have opened the doors of higher education with the HOPE Scholarship, with more
Pell Grant funding, with other tax credits for higher education, with the deductibility of student
loans.
And we have committed ourselves to building One America in the 21st Century. That
means finding ways to not only tolerate, but celebrate our differences while embracing the values
that unite us. We have appointed an administration that looks like America, with the most
diverse Cabinet and Administration in history. We have appointed more people of color to
federal benches. And we have increased funding for the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission, to help reduce the backlog of complaints.
We are doing more than ever to help minority businesses succeed, with increased access
to capital and two and half times more small business loans to African American entrepreneurs
since 1992. And we have increased the number of SBA loans to Hispanics by 250 percent.
Over the last six and a half years, we have turned the corner on our economic and social
challenges. The American people have created almost 20 million new jobs, with rising wages,
the longest peacetime expansion in history, the highest home ownership rate ever recorded, a 30
year-low in unemployment, a 32-year low in the welfare rolls, a 25 year-low in the crime rate,
and the lowest poverty rates in 20 years, with over 5 million men, women and children lifted out
of poverty since 1993.
We have widened the circle of opportunity. The African-American poverty rate and child
poverty rate are now at their lowest levels on record. The Hispanic poverty rate is the lowest in a
generation. We have the lowest female unemployment in 46 years and the lowest minority
unemployment ever recorded. African American homeownership has increased by 25 percent.
And by balancing the budget for the first time in a generation, we have changed red ink into
black with growing surpluses projected for years to come. And we did all this with the smallest
government since John F. Kennedy was in the White House.
We've created the most prosperous economy in a generation. Now we have the chance to
create a generation of prosperity. By looking to the future, by meeting our long-term challenges.
That's what we must do. We can not rest. We still have work to do.
In spite of our growing prosperity, there are people and places untouched by our
economic recovery. We have an opportunity and an obligation now, with all this good fortune, to
bring the American Dream to those who have been left behind. We're doing that now in
empowerment zones and enterprise communities across our land.
But we cannot rest until every community, every neighborhood, every block, and every family
has the chance to reap the benefits of our economic growth.
2
Our Administration's New Markets Initiative would provide tax credits and loan
guarantees to promote private investment in hard-pressed communities. Just last week, I traveled
to Newark, New Jersey; Hartford, Connecticut; Hermitage, Arkansas; and Englewood, Illinois to
visit some of these communities. These are not pockets of poverty. They are pools of potential.
They are the home to new markets and new workers we need in the new economy. And we
ought to encourage businesses to invest in them. Just as we give incentives to encourage
investment in new markets around the world, we need to give incentives for businesses to invest
in new markets here at home. Let's rise to that challenge.
We also can not rest until all our children in every neighborhood have a world-class
education. That's why we are fighting for a budget that hires 100K new highly-qualified
teachers to reduce class size in the early grades. And that's why we have taken action to make
sure all our children have access to 21st Century technology. We must bridge the digital divide.
We can not rest until we rise to the challenge of quality health care for all Americans. By
eliminating unacceptable disparities in health and health care that too often break down along the
color line. Passing an enforceable Patients Bill of Rights. And doing more to battle the
epidemic of AIDS-here and around the world.
We can not rest until we increase the minimum wage again for all Americans, without
unfair and excessive tax breaks to special interests. When we last raised the minimum wage to
$5.15 an hour, it directly benefited 1.3 million African American and 1.6 million Hispanic
workers.
And we cannot rest until Congress passes a strong hate-crimes bill to protect more of our
citizens from violence and bigotry.
I want to leave you tonight with a passage from the scripture I shared with the staff of the
Commerce Department on the day we lost Ron Brown. It was his favorite verse from Isaiah,
"They who wait upon the Lord shall have their strength renewed. They shall mount up with
wings as eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and faint not."
Ron Brown walked, ran, and flew through life. He was a magnificent life force. This
award is but one way that force and Ron Brown's spirit will live on - recognizing those who are
helping others realize their God-given potential. Thank you and God bless you.
3
RON BROWN
POTUS:
Remarks at the Funeral of Secretary of Commerce Ronald H. Brown
BODY:
Ladies and gentlemen, Fellow Americans, citizens of the world who have come here; to Alma and Tracey
and Michael and Tammy; to Chip and to Ron's mother and to the other members of the family who are here:
This has been a long week for all of us who loved Ron Brown, cared for his work, cherished the brilliant
young people who worked with him, honored the business executives who took the mission of peace to
Bosnia, and the members of our United States military who were taking them on that mission.
But this has been the longest week for the Brown family. You have grieved and wept. You have comforted
others whose loved ones were lost. You have remembered and smiled, and last evening you got to celebrate
and laugh at the life that you shared each in your own way, with Ron.
I begin by saying to all of you, on behalf of all of us, we thank you for the strength you have given to others
even as you have borne your own grief, for we can see Ron in your eyes and hear him in your voices and
feel his strength in yours, Indeed, I was confident as I heard Michael speak that from heaven Ron had
written the words. So today and in all of our tomorrows, as we remember and love him, we will remember
and love you.
We hope on this day amidst all the grief you will also feel gratitude for his magnificent life, determination
to carry on his legacy and keep it alive, and the peace of God which takes us to a place beyond all our
understanding.
The Bible tells us, "though we weep through the night, joy will come in the morning." Ron Brown's
incredible life force brought us all joy in the morning. No dark night could ever defeat him. And as we
remember him, may we always be able to recover his joy. For this man loved life and all the things in it. He
loved the big things: his family, his friends, his country, his work, his African-American heritage, He loved
the difference he was making in the world, this new and exciting world after the cold war.
And he loved life's little things: the Redskins and basketball and golf, even when it was bad. and
McDonald's and clothes. And I'm telling you, folks, he would have loved this deal today. I mean, here we
are for Ron Brown in the National Cathedral with full military honors, filled with the distinguished
citizenry of this country and leaders from around the world in a tribute to him. And as I look around I see
that all of us are dressed almost as well as he would be today. [Laughter]
But let us remember also that he loved success, but not so much he wanted to succeed at the wrong things or
in the wrong way. And he always remembered that worldly success doesn't take us too very far from all the
rest of our fellow human beings who don't enjoy as much of it. That accounts for why he was always so kind
to people without regard to their station in life.
Ron Brown enjoyed a lot of success. He proved you could do well and do good. He also proved you could
do good and have a good time. And he also proved that you could do all that and, at the same time, still take
time to help other people.
With his passion and determination, his loves and his joys, his going beyond the stereotypes of his time, he
lived a truly American life. He lived his life for America, and when the time came, he was found laying
down his life for America.
What a life it was. With his remarkable enthusiasm that infected everything he did. As long as I live I will
remember the time Ron Brown and I were walking the streets of the neighborhood in Los Angeles, and we
went to this sporting goods store that had been owned by some people who were trying to help young folks
stay out of gangs. And in the back of the sporting goods store, there was a basketball court.
And all these little kids had gathered around and they asked Ron, and they asked me if we would like to
play basketball. So we divided up sides. He took a few kids. I took a few kids. All of a sudden he forgot
who was President and how he got his day job. [Laughter] He was totally caught up in the drama of the
game. This was an important trip we took, but afterward, whenever anyone asked him about that trip, all he
could remember to say was, "The President was in my face from 20 feet out, but when I shot, nothing but
net." [Laughter]
Ron Brown was very clever. Even as a young boy at the Hotel Teresa, "Little Brown," as Joe Louis called
him, was always trying to think of what else could be done. He met all kinds of celebrities, as has been
widely chronicled, men like Louis Armstrong and Sugar Ray Robinson and women like Lena Horne and
Dinah Washington. And he did what most kids do, even today, he got their autographs. But unlike most
kids, he sold them to his friends. [Laughter] According to Michael, he sold two to a page, five bucks a pop,
until Joe Louis found out and shut down his act. [Laughter] But it was too late. He was well on his way to
becoming the Secretary of Commerce. [Laughter]
He was daring. We all know that. He was daring when he announced he wanted to be the chairman of the
Democratic Party, after we had lost three Presidential elections. And no one thought he had a chance to win.
Then when he won, he announced that in 1992 the world's oldest political party would win the White House
again. And nobody thought he was right, including the Governor of a small Southern State. [Laughter] But
as with so many other things, he was right, and the rest of us were wrong.
On a personal note, I want to say to my friend just one last time. Thank you. If it weren't for you, I wouldn't
be here.
Ron Brown was a true leader, and he knew that in his mind that meant you could never show doubt, even if
you had to kind of make it up as you went along. I later learned this story about his acceptance of the job I
offered him. I sent for Ron. He came to see me, and I said, "You know, this is a big, new world out there,
and you ought to be Secretary of Commerce. You could change the future of America and millions of other
people around the world. You could make a real difference." And he said, "That sounds good. I want to
think about it."
I later learned that he walked out and went to see our mutual friend, Harold Ickes, and said, "Harold, what
does the Secretary of Commerce do?" [Laughter] By the time he arrived, he knew. He knew better than
anyone else. He came on like a force of nature.
Yesterday I received a letter from one of the many business executives that Ron Brown helped to open new
markets around the world. He's on our Export Council, and he said in this letter, "You know, Mr. President,
Ron Brown really is the finest Secretary of Commerce the United States ever had."
He also remembered what it was he was leaning toward. Ron Brown made his staff memorize a one-
sentence mission statement about their job at Commerce. Here it is: The mission of the Department of
Commerce is to ensure economic opportunity for every American.
That was Ron. He wanted to give other people a chance to live a good life and live the American dream. He
wanted to do it in a way that helped people around the world to lift their aspirations. He went after it with
everything he had. He used to say to me, "If what we have to do means getting the government out of the
way, let's lead the charge. And if what we have to do means working together to find some new solution,
Let's fulfill the mission."
He also never forgot that there are always some people who are left behind. I want to tell you this story
because to me it captures so much the essence of what made him very special. When we first came into
office we only had about a month to put our first budget together. And we knew we had to do some pretty
tough things to get the deficit way down. Day after day, the Cabinet would gather in the Roosevelt Room;
Ron was always there.
And on one of those days, we talked about the need not only to cut the budget but to do some really
symbolic things that would show the American people we were different and we stood for the right things.
And we were all, frankly, being just a little sanctimonious in looking for symbolic gestures.
And so we were talking about the need to cut the perks that had previously been provided to top officials,
things like chefs in the Secretary's dining room and chauffeurs for a lot of higher ranking officials. And we
talked about them, frankly, all of us, nonchalantly and fairly sanctimoniously, until Ron turned to me and
said, "You know, these cuts are the right thing to do, Mr. President. It is the right thing to do. But I'd just
like to remind people that there are real human beings in those jobs as chefs and chauffeurs. A lot of those
folks are my age. Many are black men. Most of them never had the opportunities you and I did. So let's go
on and do the right things and make the cuts. But let's not forget about those people, and let's try to help
them go on with their lives in dignity."
No one else said that but Ron Brown. He could see where we had to go. He knew it was the right thing to
do. But he had enough peripheral vision to know how other people were being affected.
That last thing I'd like to say about his remarkable public life is that while he was often determined to be
first, he was equally determined that he would never be the last. And so he exerted more extraordinary
effort than virtually anybody I've ever known to develop the talents of other people, to reach out to the
young, to give them a chance to serve. How much of the weeping we have done this last week because there
were so many brilliant, young people on that plane with him from different backgrounds and different racial
groups. Why? Because Ron Brown could see in them the promise of a new tomorrow, and he knew they
needed someone to reach down and give them the opportunity to serve.
And I hope that is something that none of us will ever forget. For his legacy burns brightly, not only in the
lives of his wife and children and other family members but also all of those brilliant young men and
women, many of whom are with us today, who walk through the doors that he opened and crossed over the
bridges that he built.
I received a lot of letters and calls, like many of you have, since Ron died. I got this letter from Michael
Armstrong, the chairman of Hughes Electronics, who was one of the people Ron worked with. And I wanted
to read this to you, because so often we think Government operates in a vacuum. Listen to this:
"While the demands of business, the pressures of the Commerce Department, and the politics of
Washington can often mask the spirit and character of the dedicated people who try so hard to make a
difference for America, the business at hand, the pressures on the Department, and the politics of the
moment never dimmed the smile, the energy, the commitment, and the leadership of the man who made
such a big difference in the direction and destiny of our country. He led his party to the Presidency. He led
the Commerce Department with imagination and distinction. He led American business to new global
opportunity. He led his race as an unassuming, but forceful role model. He led us all in being what he
believed in. He was truly a leader."
Ron Brown: a trailblazer, a builder, a patriot; a husband, a father, a wonderful friend, and a great
American.
Let us remember these things about Ron. Let us always have our joy in the morning. Let us be determined
to carry on his legacy. Let us always be vigilant, as he was, in fighting against any shred of racism and
prejudice. Let us always be vigilant, as he was, ill remembering that we cannot lift ourselves up by tearing
other people down, that we have to go forward together. Let us always remember, as he did, that Alexis de
Tocqueille was right when he said so many years ago, America is great because America is good. He knew
we had to keep working and striving to be better.
In his last sermon from the pulpit, Martin Luther King asked God to grant us all a chance to be participants
in the newness and magnificent development of America. That is the cause for which Ron Brown gave his
life and the cause for which he gave up his life.
In his letter to the Galatians, St. Paul said, "Let us not grow weary in doing good. For in due season we shall
reap if we do not lose heart." Our friend never grew weary; he never lost heart. He did so much good, and
he is now reaping his reward. He left us sooner than we wanted him to leave, but what a legacy of love and
life he left behind.
Now he's in a place where he doesn't even have to worry about how good he looks. He always will look
good. He's in a place where there's always joy in the morning. He's in a place where every good quality he
ever had has been rendered perfect. He's in a place he deserves to be because of the way he lived and what
he left to those of us who loved him.
Let there always be joy in the morning for Ron Brown. Amen.
Remarks at Ronald H. Brown Corporate Bridge Builder Award Dinner
I was just sitting here -- out there -- wondering, Michael, if I need to stand up here and announce that I'm
changing parties, so that you don't lose your tax-exempt status for the foundation -- [laughter] -- I'd do
nearly anything for Alma and you and Tracey and Ron -- I don't think I can quite get there, but -- [laughter].
You know, I had a feeling -- the reason I asked for the children to speak -- they're young adults, I guess is
that after Patrick spoke so beautifully, and then after Sol spoke so powerfully, I figured, well, what the heck,
they've already heard the best speeches of the night anyway. [Laughter]
I wanted you to hear them because I think it's important that you see flesh-and-blood examples of why Mr.
Trujillo and his company were honored tonight. And I think it's important that you see examples of the work
of the Brown Foundation as embodied in Patrick's remarks, and the work that Mr. Trujillo has done as
embodied in those two young people, because that's really what we're here about.
I want to thank all of you for being here, and many members of the administration who are here -- Secretary
Slater; Secretary Herman; Maria Echaveste, my Deputy Chief of Staff; Minyon Moore, my Political
Director; Ben Johnson who runs our One America office; Dave Barram at the General Services
Administration; and maybe many more people. I know Fred Humphries is here, who now works for US
West, but once worked in my campaign. I'm glad that didn't disqualify him for employment in your
company. [Laughter]
Most of what needs to be said has been said. I'd like to be very personal, if I might. I have just to the right of
my desk in the Oval Office, right behind the commemorative pin that was issued for Nelson Mandela's 80th
birthday, a picture of Ron Brown and me sharing a funny moment. We shared a lot of funny moments. and
we're laughing. And sometimes I find myself almost talking to this picture. I confess that there are a lot of
times when I just miss him terribly.
Yesterday we gave Ernie Green is here -- yesterday we gave a Congressional Gold Medal to the Little
Rock Nine. And Ernie and I have been friends for more than 20 years. All the Little Rock Nine, because I
was Governor of Arkansas, I've known for many years. And it was an incredibly emotional moment. And I
was sitting up there on the little stage at the White House, with tears in my eyes. And one of the things I was
thinking is, gosh, this is another thing I wish Ron were sitting here for. He ought to be here for this.
And I was thinking when I saw Mayor Dinkins out there, who was a great friend of Ron Brown, how we all
got started in New York in 92. You brought Nelson Mandela to meet me the first time. You remember that?
And what great friends we all became. And I was thinking before I came over here tonight -- I called the
Speaker of the House and Senator Lott and pleaded with them -- and I don't use that word lightly -- to do
whatever we could possibly do to pass the Africa trade bill and the Caribbean Basin initiative before this
Congress goes home for Thanksgiving and Christmas. And that issue wouldn't even be on the agenda if it
weren't for Ron Brown.
I was thinking about the incredible conversation I had when I talked Ron into being Secretary of
Commerce. He thought it was a backwater for political appointees who wanted something else. [Laughter]
And I said, "You don't understand." I said, "I made up my mind that I'm not going to give any of these
political jobs to people who can't do them." And if you -- one of the -- I believe -- let me just back up and
say, I believe that when the history of this administration is written, one of the things even our critics will
give us credit for is having not only a good economic policy but a good way of making economic policy.
And I discovered when I became President -- we have Jim Harmon here, the head of the Export-Import
Bank -- that all these little orbits were out there. You had the Treasury Department here, and you had the
Commerce Department there, and you had the Export-Import Bank and the Overseas Private Investment
Corporation over there. You had all these things spread out. And so it was just like sort of a roll of the dice
whether you had somebody who was really good and then whether that person ever got the President's ear.
And so we organized a National Economic Council. And Bob Rubin was the first leader of it, before he
became Treasury Secretary, when Senator Bentsen was Treasury Secretary. And we put all these people
together, including Secretary Herman's Labor Department, to make sure that working people were not cut
out. And we all worked together. And Secretary Slater's Transportation Department was part of it, because
that's a huge impact on our economy.
And the Commerce Department is this vast Department. And once Ron Brown got a hold of that empire he
found that he liked it right well. [Laughter] And he discovered that there were a lot of things he could do
with it. And it was truly a thing of beauty, for those of us who love public service and politics, to see Ron
run the Commerce Department and to see it come alive and to see it reach out for America all around the
world and to see it reach deep into America -- to minority business people who had been left behind -- and
to see this great, sort of unifying vision and all this energy he had make the thing fly. It was an amazing
thing to see.
And as Sol pointed out in his ungracious reminder of that basketball game in Los Angeles -- [laughter]
we had a lot of fun, too. And so I really miss him in ways, large and small, at the strangest times. I just do.
But tonight I come here, and I see these pictures, and I want to smile, not cry. Because if we all live to be
100, it's just a brief blink of the eye in the whole sweep of human history. And none of us knows whether
we have tomorrow or not. And if we do, it's a gift. And most of us, or we wouldn't be here tonight in the
first place, most of us, whatever happens to us from now on, we're going to go out of this world ahead.
And so I think the most important thing I can say to you tonight is that he'd be very pleased that we're here
honoring his legacy by, number one, permitting this foundation to bring young people into politics because
he thought it was good, politics and public service, and it is -- and if it weren't good, we wouldn't still be
here after over 220 years and number two, because he believed in commerce, and he thought that
economic growth and economic opportunity was something more than mere materialism.
The fact that we have the lowest unemployment rate in 30 years and the lowest welfare rolls in 32 years and
the lowest crime rate in 25 years, those things are not unrelated one to the other. The fact that we are
moving in the right direction on all fronts is, in part, the result of the expansion of economic opportunity to
the lowest African-American poverty rates and unemployment rates ever recorded, the lowest Hispanic
unemployment rate ever recorded, and the lowest Hispanic poverty rate in a quarter century. Those things
are not unrelated.
He understood the dignity of work, the dignity of enterprise, the dignity of achievement, and the importance
of giving everybody a chance at the brass ring. And those of us who have been left behind have tried to
carry on that work in various ways.
I just want to say one thing here. Our leader, Senator Daschle, is here, our Democratic leader in the Senate.
Not a thing I have done could have been done if he hadn't been with me every step of the way -- not a thing.
So we honor young people, and the work of Ron Brown and this foundation. And we honor this great
company because most people in America don't work for the Government, and most of the economy is not
the Government. And I'm very proud that in addition to having the longest peacetime expansion in history,
we have the highest percentage of jobs created in the private sector, not the public sector, in the last 50
years of any economic expansion.
But in order to make it work, we have to have corporate leaders who either have the vision, just because
they do, of a unified America, or have both the vision and the personal experiences that this great leader has
shared with us tonight from his own life. And that's a good thing.
So I ask you to think just about three things before we all go home tonight. We have the most prosperous
time in my lifetime and the only time in my lifetime we've ever had this level of prosperity and this level of
confidence and no pressing domestic crisis or foreign threat to disturb our daily endeavors. So the question I
have for you -- this is one time when I miss Ron and his energy -- is, what are we going to do with this?
Because we know from the ups and downs in our own lives that nothing lasts forever. Nothing bad lasts
forever. Nothing good last forever. Nothing lasts forever. So we have this moment, the only time in my
lifetime we've ever been like this. What are we going to do with it?
I have been saying to the American people, if you sit around and think about it, how many times had you
had a moment like this in your personal life or your family life or your business life, where things were just
rocking along great, and then something bad happened because you didn't make the most of the moment.
Instead you indulged yourself or you got distracted or diverted, or you thought you didn't really have to deal
with these things that you knew were out there.
We know what's out there for us. We know the big challenges. We know the big opportunities. These
children's lives have told us some of them tonight. We know we're going to double the number of people
over 65 in the next 30 years, and we haven't made sure Social Security will take care of the whole baby
boom generation. We know that Medicare is going to run out of money, and 75 percent of our seniors don't
have prescription drugs.
We know we've got the biggest group of school children in history, and they're more diverse than ever
before. And while we've opened the doors to college to all Americans now with the HOPE scholarship, the
increased Pell grants, the deductibility of student loan interests, nobody thinks that every child in America is
getting a world-class elementary and secondary education, and we know they need it.
You heard that very powerful presentation by Shayla about going to the computers after school because of
what you did. We had a percent of our classrooms connected to the Internet 4 years ago we have a
member of the FCC here, Susan Ness; thank you for the E-rate which allows poor schools to afford to get
into the Internet. And now we're up to 51 percent. We're going to try to get to 100 percent. But there are a
bunch of these kids that will never get their schools connected because the schools are so old and decrepit,
they cannot be wired.
In Mayor Dinkins' hometown 40 percent of the schools are 70 years old or older. We have schools in New
York City that are heated by coal in the winter, still. So we know these things.
We know we've got a big environmental challenge in global warming. We can deny it all we want to, but
we've got the technology to grow economics without burning up the environment, and we're either going go
do it or not.
So what I want to say to you is, this is a moment where we have to decide. And we need people of high
energy and vision to remind us that we have to decide. You ought to go home tonight and ask yourself, what
do you think the -- no fewer than 5, no more than 10 biggest challenges are our country will face in the next
30 years. I bet if we could all gather tomorrow night, there would be 80 percent congruence in our list. We
know what the big opportunities and challenges are there. The issue is, what are we going to do about
it?
Are we going to just sort of rock along and say, "Boy, this is peachy-keen, and I'm glad?" Well, I'm not
going to rock along. I've got 430-some days to be President, and I'm going to hit it every day I can. But I
won't be President after that. But what I want to say to you is, in the coming election season and in the
coming years of work we have here ahead of us, and in you own work, you have to decide. You know if
you just stop and think, you know what the big challenges and the big opportunities for America are. This is
the only time in my lifetime we've ever had the chance to build the future of our dreams without a pressing
domestic crisis or a threat to our national security. And if you believe in what Ron Brown lived for, you
will do that, and you won't blow the chance.
The second thing I'd like to say is -- I want to say this out of respect particularly to what Beau said when he
was up here talking about his people from Montana. We now have the chance, and maybe the only chance,
in our lifetime to extend economic opportunity to the people in places that have been left behind. Yes, we've
got the lowest unemployment rate and the lowest minority unemployment rate we've ever recorded. That's
the good news. The bad news is you know as well as I do that there are people in places that have been
totally left behind.
Alma, you talked about New York. You know, if you took away New York City and the suburban counties,
and you only had upstate New York, it would rank 49th in job growth of all the States in the country. That's
hard to believe. You don't think that about New York. We're talking about Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo,
Albany, places with great infrastructures of education and talented people but where a lot of the economy
moved, and it's not been replenished.
Hawaii, a place that we all think of as a place where we go for fun and everything is peachy-keen, the only
State in the country that hasn't had economic growth in the last 2 1/2 years because of the collapse of the
Asian economies.
That's why I started this new markets initiative, to build on the employment zone program that Vice
President Gore has so brilliantly run the last few years that's brought a lot of economic opportunity to
discreet places in America. But what I want to do with this new markets initiative is, two things: I want to
point up all these places in America that we ought to be investing in, and I want to give Americans the same
incentives to invest in developing areas in America we give them to invest in developing areas in Latin
America and Africa and Asia. I want you to invest overseas, but our first and biggest and best new markets
are here at home.
You know, Senator Daschle and I were in South Dakota the other day, and we went to the Pine Ridge
Reservation. And I was a lot of the tour I made through the reservation I was escorted by this beautiful
17-year-old Native American girl, who was just as articulate and intelligent -- and very wise, I might add,
because she had a very tough life. I mean, a very tough life. But I thought to myself, why shouldn't this child
have the same opportunities that my daughter's had. And if she had them, what in the world could she do
with them, not only for herself but for her people.
Do you know what the unemployment rate on the Pine Ridge Reservation is -- 73 percent. Now, the national
unemployment rate is 4.1 percent. I think it's even lower in South Dakota. The female unemployment rate of
the 4.1 percent is the lowest it's been in 46 years. But you still have these pockets.
And if Ron Brown were here, I know what he'd be telling you. He'd be saying, now, I want you to hustle up
some investment for these areas, and we're going to try to get you a tax break, but you ought to do it
whether you get one or not because it's huge opportunity, in the inner cities, in Appalachia, in the
Mississippi Delta, on the Native American reservations.
You would be amazed how much time we spend now with our economic team sitting around thinking, how
can we keep this good ride going; how long can we push this expansion out? We know that technology gave
us greater productivity than the economists know, and that's part of the reason for the expansion. We know
we got 30 percent of our growth out of technology, another 30 percent out of exports. How long can it keep
going?
All other economic expansions have ended in one or two ways. Things get so heated up that there's
inflation; then you have to stop the inflation, and the price of breaking the inflation breaks the recovery. Or
it just runs out of steam. This thing just is chugging along. How can we keep it going?
If you invest in these areas that have been left behind, you create new businesses, new jobs, and new
consumers. And when you do that, you don't have any inflation because you've got new production and new
consumption. This is a big deal.
The third thing I'd like to say -- and I can't say it any more eloquently than Sol Trujillo already said -- is
and I told the group next door if someone said to me, "You've got to go now. You've had a good time
being President, but your time is up. And well give you one wish," and the proverbial genie showed up. But
I didn't get three wishes. I just got one. [Laughter] I'd probably mess it up if I had three, you know.
[Laughter] I got one. I would say, remember these children tonight, all three of them. Remember the
powerful example of this great corporate executive and what he said about how he got his start and how
many times he could have been stopped.
I would say the most important thing would be for us to genuinely build one America, not just to tolerate
one another, not just to avoid saying insensitive things, things that would embarrass you at a cocktail party
or something, and on a more serious note, not even to eliminate all the hate crimes, although I dearly want
to do that and I hope to pass the hate crimes legislation -- but I mean an America where we looked at each
other and we thought: Hey, look around this room; this is one great deal here; we're not tolerating each
other; we're celebrating each other.
Do we have honest differences? I certainly hope so. It's the only way you ever learn anything. But we
manage them instead of letting them drive us apart. And we actually believe that what enables us to tap the
benefits of our diversity and have more fun in life is a shared understanding that our common humanity is
the most important thing.
If you really strip away what everybody says about Ron Brown, everybody that really knows him just liked
him because they thought he loved life. If you see somebody that loves life and loves people, it's hard to
dislike them, because it's contagious.
And if I could just have my little one wish, I would say, if you look at the whole history of America, we
kept on going because we kept on widening the circle of opportunity and deepening the meaning of freedom
and moving closer toward one America.
When we started, we had all these guys that wrote this Constitution say, "We're all created equal, and God
made it so. But, oh, by the way, we've got slavery, and it's unthinkable that women could vote, and we're not
even going to let white guys vote unless they own land." We've come a long way since then, right? I mean,
we started even I couldn't have voted; my people wouldn't have been landowners. We'd have been hired
help. So we've come a long way.
But if you look around the world today, if you look at these horrible hate crimes in America, and you look
around the world today, from Kosovo and Bosnia to Rwanda to the Middle East to Northern Ireland, the
whole world is still bedeviled in this high technology age by the most primitive problem of human society:
We're still kind of scared of one another. We don't deal with people who are different from us as well as we
should. And we might rock along doing all right for years and then turn on a dime. That's what happened in
Rwanda. Just turn on a dime.
So I say to you, I want you to think about this. When you go home tonight I want you to think about what it
would be like in 20 years to hear Patrick standing where Senator Daschle is. I want you to think about what
it would be like if Shala headed a program that gave every single child who didn't have a computer in his or
her home -- every single one in the country -- access to the Internet, so there was no digital divide.
1 want you to think about what it would be like if Beau Mitchell were the elected president of his tribe, and
they celebrated the first time in American history that all the Native Americans had unemployment rates as
low as the country and incomes as high. Just think about that. And think about how much better off all the
rest of us would be, just by going along for the ride and doing our part.
I'm telling you it's the most important thing. And it's the hardest thing in life. And the reason we all felt good
seeing these young people up here talking tonight is they represented our better selves and our hopes for
tomorrow.
If you want to do something to honor Ron Brown, number one, keep supporting this foundation because
they1 bring those kids up, and they'll give them a chance. Number two, keep supporting companies like US
West because they can really change the face of the future. And number three, do whatever you can as
citizens to make sure we do not squander the chance of a lifetime to build a future of our dreams.
Thank you, and God bless you.
Remarks on the Unveiling of a Portrait of Commerce Secretary Ronald H. Brown
BODY:
Thank you very much. Let me, first of all, say I thought Secretary Daley did a remarkable job today, and he
was the funniest I have ever heard him -- [laughter] which means either that the Commerce Department
has been very good for him, or he has found an extraordinary speechwriter. [Laughter] If it is the former, I
thank you. If it is the latter, I would like that person dispatched to the White House this afternoon.
[Laughter].
I want to thank Congressman Ford and Mr. Mayor and all of our Cabinet for being here. And Mickey,
Heidi, thank you for being here -- members of the Brown family. This is both a happy and a bittersweet
day. We are now in the springtime, even though Washington is not quite behaving like it yet. Soon the
dogwood that we planted on the back of the White House lawn will be blooming for Ron again. And now
this portrait will be here forever, to remind us all of his service and his spirit. Mr. Polson, I think you did a
terrific job, and I congratulate you. We love it.
If Ron Brown were here, I know exactly what he'd say. He'd say, "Well, you did well. I'm dressed well"
[laughter] -- "and I look very strong. But you could have made me a little thinner." [Laughter]
And I'd just like to just take a minute to remind all of you about the spirit. Secretary Daley was kind enough
to say that I have tried to elevate the Commerce Department. I think that is true, but I would like to just say
a word about it as it relates to Ron Brown.
After the election of 1992, when we were putting together our economic team and I had been listening
rather carefully to what others had said and what I had seen about previous administrations and how they
ran their economic policy, it seemed to me that, by and large, previous administrations had lodged the
making of economic policy too much either in Treasury or the White House, or both, and had sort of
overlooked the integral role of Commerce and our Trade Ambassador, on a daily basis, to the development
of our long-term economic well-being.
Same thing could be said of other departments, the Agriculture Department, the Energy Department how
they were needed to make a joint economic policy. And so we put together this National Economic Council
to integrate all the Departments. And then we decided to elevate the economic role, particularly of the
Commerce Department, and to try to bring the Trade Ambassador into the daily work of the economic life
of the administration, not just when there was some big trade negotiation going on.
And I think the evidence is, it worked pretty well. But it worked pretty well in no small measure because
Ron Brown was here and Mickey Kantor was our Trade Ambassador and because Ron Brown believed
me when I told him that I thought the Commerce Department had been grossly underutilized, at least in
recent history, in terms of building the economic potential of America, within our country and beyond our
borders. So he bought the big idea, and then he sold the big idea.
But the second point I want to make is that he did it, in no small measure, because of the spirit you see
reflected in the set of the jaw and the glance of the eyes in this fine portrait. He basically believed there was
no mountain that couldn't be climbed. He believed that American businesses had a responsibility to act in
their enlightened self-interest to help themselves and others, here at home and around the world.
He also believed that people driven by ancient hatreds could find a way to put them aside. I will never
forget how excited he was in the last conversation we had right before he left for Bosnia, how proud he was
that he could lead a delegation of American business people to the Balkans to try to make peace.
Well, the peace process is working in Bosnia. As all of you know, it's under siege again in the Balkans
because of what is going on in Kosovo. I don't want to talk about that here today except to say that there are
basically two kinds of people that are dominating the public discourse around the world today: There are
people that are determined to divide and drive wedges between and depress people because they're of
different ethnic and racial and religious groups; and then there are people like Ron Brown, who believe
that everybody ought to be lifted up and brought together and don't understand why anyone would waste
lives and take other people's lives to gain a false sense of power in a smaller and smaller life based on
oppression.
And when you look at this picture today, when you go out, first of all, I want all the members of the
Commerce Department to be proud of what you are doing, proud of what he did, and proud of what you are
doing under Secretary Daley, who has also, in my judgment, done a magnificent job. And I want you to
think about the troubles of the world today, and I want you to see your life as an instrument of bringing out
the spirit that Ron Brown brought to his life and his work in this Department every day and think about it
for what it is, the principal opposing force to all this destructive racial, ethnic, religious, and cultural
destruction we see all over the world today.
Every country has to make that choice, and in a way, every business has to make that choice and every
person has to make that choice.
We're all blessed that we knew Ron Brown. We're glad that his family is here today. We're glad we've got
Alma right where we want her; she cant talk back. I could have given her a whole lecture today. [Laughter]
But I know Ron Brown would want me to say, to use this moment to say, "Look at this picture. Look at this
life. Look at the troubles of the world." The choice is clear: America needs to stay on the path that he
blazed.
Thank you, and God bless you.
NOTE: The President spoke at 10:49 a.m. in the Herbert Hoover Building Auditorium at the Department of
Commerce. In his remarks, he referred to Mayor Anthony A. Williams of Washington, DC; former Trade
Ambassador Mickey Kantor and his wife, Heidi; artist Steven Polson, who painted the official portrait; and
Alma Brown, widow of Ron Brown.
Remarks at the Opening of the Ronald H. Brown Commercial Center in Johannesburg, South Africa
Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Motlana, for the wonderful introduction, for the extraordinary example of your
career -- physician to President Mandela, leader in the struggle for South Africa's freedom, and most
recently, one of the most successful businessmen in the new South Africa.
Thank you, Secretary Daley, Congressman Rangel, Secretary Herman, Secretary Slater. To our
ambassadors, Mr. Berger, Reverend Jackson; to the Members of Congress and the American business
leaders here today. Minister Manuel, to Millard Arnold, thank you for all the work you did on this. And to
all the members of the South African community who are here, thank you for what you're doing to build a
strong South Africa and to build the bonds of commerce between our two nations.
Let me also say I'm pleased that a young member of my White House staff, born in Johannesburg, Russel
Horwitz, is here today with his grandparents, Maurice and Phyllis Goldstein. But I'm especially pleased that
Alma Brown is here.
This has been an incredible trip to Africa, a trip which I was urged to make by Ron Brown, starting before
I became President. And I was just sitting here thinking that after all this time, Ron Brown can still draw a
crowd. [Laughter]
This has been a magical tour of this magnificent continent, and in each place, I've thought about Ron and
how he would have reacted to seeing a half a million people in Ghana; to talking to the President of
Uganda, first, about the possibility of an American investment running into the hundreds of millions of
dollars, and then walking into a little village and talking to women who got loans of $ 50 to start their own
business; meeting with the survivors of the Rwandan genocide; coming here, and all the magnificent things
that have happened at the Maphanzela school today and at the Peterson Memorial in Soweto. This has been
an incredible trip.
And in so many ways, it was inspired by the vision that Ron Brown had. Ron said that in this new era, and I
quote, "Business opportunities in South Africa, once constricted by politics and struggle, will expand. If we
are fortunate, we will see the rooting of democracy and free economy whose branches will soon spread, so
that other African nations would also benefit." We are here to dedicate a center in honor of Ron Brown, to
commerce, but also to bear witness that his vision is coming true.
As Secretary of Commerce, Ron Brown relentlessly promoted the idea that American businesses could
help themselves while helping to support growth and opportunity and freedom in the rest of the world. He
believed that assistance was still needed for developing nations but that self-perpetuating prosperity would
never occur until we also had substantial amounts of trade and investment. Five times Ron Brown came to
Africa to do business, to create opportunities for Americans and for Africans. He came at the right time
South Africa emerging, and all around the continent a new Africa taking shape; increasingly open to free
markets, democracy, human rights.
Today, enterprising governments and entrepreneurs are taking Africa's future into their own hands, opening
markets, privatizing industry, stabilizing currency, reducing inflation, and creating jobs. Small businesses
are sprouting in cities and villages. Modern telecommunication systems are spreading. There are now 15
African stock markets, and 5 more in the works. Average economic growth on this continent has been 5
percent, with some countries as high as 10. Our trade with Africa is 20 percent greater than our trade with
all the former Soviet Union. It supports 100,000 American jobs. The average annual return on investment
I hope they're listening back in America the average annual return on investment is 30 percent. This is a
good deal, folks.
But there is more to do. Nearly 700 million people live in sub-Saharan Africa, but only about one percent of
our trade and one percent of our direct foreign investment is in Africa. There is new thinking in America
and in Africa about how we can do better by building genuine partnerships, partnerships with business
owners who respect workers and workers who respect their companies; with governments that respect
entrepreneurs and businesses that accept laws necessary to protect workers, consumers, and the
environment; and businesses that increasingly will accept responsibility for playing a role in solving the
social problems of their nations; and trade and investment across borders built on common interests and
mutual respect. Mutual respect and shared benefit, these are the foundations Ron Brown laid for our
partnership.
As he well understood, and I reaffirm today, a new partnership in trade and investment should not come at
the expense of development assistance when it is plainly still needed. Trade cannot replace aid when there is
still so much poverty, flooding, encroaching deserts, drought, violence, threatened food supplies, malaria,
AIDS, and other diseases, with literacy below 50 percent in many nations, because economies and
businesses and individual workers cannot fulfill their potential when too many people cannot read or are
hungry or ill. I will work with our Congress to restore our development assistance to Africa to its historic
high level, but we must build on it with trade and investment.
Nine months ago in Washington I announced our new plan, the Partnership for Economic Growth and
Opportunity With Africa, intended to leverage the work of other industrialized countries, international
institutions, and the nations and people of Africa, itself. Our Congress is now moving forward with
legislation to forward that initiative. Already it has passed our House of Representatives; soon, I hope, our
Senate will pass it, as well. Among the Members of the congressional delegation with me today, there are
four of the bill's greatest proponents: Congressman Rangel and Congressman Royce, Congressman
McDermott, Congressman Jefferson, along with Congressman Crane, who is not here, and the other
Members of the congressional delegation that are here. Let me thank them for their hard work and urge
them to go get the Senate to follow suit.
The plan we bring has five elements. First, we offer all African nations greater access to our markets.
African countries aggressively pursuing economic reforms will be able to export almost 50 percent more
products to America duty-free. In the future, we're prepared to negotiate free-trade agreements with strong-
performing, growth-oriented economies, including at appropriate times with the countries in this region.
Under our plan, all African nations will benefit. Those with the greatest commitment to reform to unlocking
the potential of their people will benefit the most, whether they are the richest in Africa or the poorest. Our
bonds will grow based not on wealth but on will, the will to pursue political and economic change so that
everyone may have a role in the progress of tomorrow.
Second, we will target our assistance so that African nations can reform their economies to take advantage
of the new opportunities. This means helping countries with creative approaches to finance, supporting the
progress of regional markets, encouraging African entrepreneurs to look for new opportunities.
In conjunction with the Ron Brown Foundation, we will help to establish an endowment through the Ron
Brown Center to help young Africans to pursue internships with American companies to gain technical
expertise in commerce, trade, and finance. We've named a new high-level trade representative whose only
job is to deepen trade with Africa, Rosa Whitaker. Rosa, where are you? Stand up there. Thank you.
[Applause] And I've asked Congress for another $ 30 million this year to fund support programs for this
endeavor.
Third, we are working to spur private investment. Our Overseas Private Investment Corporation has
established three funds to help ventures be financed in Africa. The newest of these will provide up to $ 500
million for investments in roads, bridges, and ports, as well as microenterprise and women-owned
businesses, to facilitate economic opportunity. And to serve as the hub for American investors interested in
Africa, there is a new commercial center in which we are gathered. That's what we're here for. And let me
say it again. The only name that this center could have is the Ron Brown Center.
Fourth, with our wealthy partners in the G-7, we have secured a commitment from the World Bank to
increase lending to Africa by as much as $ 1.1 billion in the coming year, with a focus on reforming
countries. We want to speed debt relief to the Highly Indebted Poorest Countries program, which is now
helping countries get out from under the crushing debt burdens that prevent growth. And I'll raise at the next
G-7 meeting in England early in May the concerns that I've heard on this trip from African leaders about the
debt issue. I've also asked our Congress for enough debt relief funding this year to wipe out all bilateral
concessional debt for the fastest reforming poor nations.
In total, our budget request this year would permit up to $ 1.6 billion in bilateral debt relief for Africa. I
challenge others in the industrial world to offer more debt relief so that we can free up resources for health,
education, and sustainable growth. And let me say again to the Americans back home, this is not charity;
this is enlightened self-interest. It is good for American business, the American economy, and American
jobs to have a sensible growth policy.
Finally, because of the growing importance of our economic ties to Africa, I intend to invite leaders of
reforming nations to a summit meeting in Washington so that we can lay specific plans to follow up on this
trip and the announcements I have made on it. We will also invite the trade, finance, and foreign ministers
to meet with their American counterparts every year to advance the cause of modernization and reform.
Ron Brown understood, and the leaders of Democratic Africa understand that nations cannot become
economic powers unless their people are empowered, unless citizens are free to speak their mind and create,
unless there is equality and the rule of law and what the experts call transparency. The African leaders have
put a premium on improving government accountability and attacking corruption and other barriers to doing
business. Those who have done that will be richly rewarded in the global marketplace. The United States
shares these goals, and we intend to work with African leaders who want to make progress on them.
Taken together, the provisions of our plan -- trade benefits, technical and continued development assistance,
support for private investment, increased financing and debt relief, and high-level consultations to make
sure there is followup -- and this trip is not a one-shot event these will provide an environment in which
private enterprise, African and American, will thrive, creating jobs and prosperity. This is a good thing for
the American people and for American business. It is a good thing for Africa.
Let me also say that nothing we do can supplant the important, essential efforts that African leaders -- not
just political leaders but business leaders take for themselves. We must do more to educate all the
children, to provide decent shelter, to provide decent health care. We must do more to work together to
solve the continuing problems in every society on this continent.
Nothing the American people can do will replace your efforts, but I have seen the energy, the determination,
and the courage of the people in every country I have visited. They are worthy of our best efforts at
partnership, and we intend to give it to them.
The progress we make together is the best way possible to honor the legacy of Ron Brown. He died in the
service of his country on one of these missions, to a war-torn country in the hope of making peace. He
believed that economic progress was a moral good if it was fairly shared and everyone had a chance to live
out their dreams and fulfill their aspirations. He understood that the economy was about more than a few
people making money. It was about organizing free people so that they could put their talents to work to
help a society lift itself up, to solve problems and seize opportunities, and make life more meaningful and
more enjoyable.
He was a bold thinker, a brilliant strategist, a devoted public servant, a good father and husband, and he was
a terrific friend. I miss him terribly at this moment. But I cannot imagine a more fitting tribute to a man who
proved that the Commerce Department could be an engine of growth and opportunity at home and abroad,
who accepted my challenge to take a moribund agency and put it at the center of our economic policy, of
our foreign policy, and of America's future in the world. He did his job well. I hope that when we leave
here, we can do our job just as well so that this center will be a fitting, lasting legacy.
Thank you, and God bless you.
BIO:
Brown, Ron (1 Aug. 1941-3 Apr. 1996), secretary of commerce and Democratic party leader, was born
Ronald Harmon Brown in Washington, D.C., the son of William Brown, who worked for the New Deal-era
Federal Housing and Home Finance Agency, and Gloria Elexine Brown. In 1947 the family moved to
Harlem in New York City, where William Brown had been hired as the manager of the famed Hotel
Theresa, the lodging of choice for celebrated black musicians, civic leaders, athletes, and writers. Ron spent
much of his youth there, soaking up the rich cultural life of the hotel and meeting many of its famous
residents. On graduating in 1958 from Rhodes, a private preparatory school in Manhattan, he entered
Middlebury College in Vermont, becoming one of only three black students in the school and the first black
to be initiated into his fraternity.
A fair student, Brown was popular and made friends easily. He received his degree in political science in
1962, the same year he married Alma Arrington. They had two children. In 1963 Brown began a tour of
duty in the U.S. Army, serving in Germany and Korea. Although he contemplated a career in the military,
he left the service with the rank of captain in January 1967 and accepted a position in New York with the
National Urban League, a service agency that helped black people with housing, education, jobs, and job-
related training. While attending St. John's University Law School in the evenings, Brown took on more
responsibility at the Urban League and eventually became youth program administration specialist in 1970,
when he also received his law degree from St. John's.
In 1971 Brown passed the New York State Bar exam and, at age thirty, was named general counsel for the
Urban League. Two years later he moved his family to Washington, D.C., where he was appointed director
of the Washington bureau, reporting to executive director Vernon Jordan. As head of the Washington office
of the Urban League, Brown often was called to testify on Capitol Hill on issues related to African
Americans, earning a reputation as a dynamic speaker and building relationships that served him well in his
later endeavors. Despite his passion for civil rights, Brown was nonconfrontational, preferring to work
within the system instead of against it.
In late 1979 Brown, eager to become involved in politics, left the Urban League to help manage Senator
Edward Kennedy's unsuccessful campaign for the Democratic nomination for president. The following year
Kennedy appointed Brown chief counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee, of which the Massachusetts
senator was chair. In April 1981, after the Republicans swept the Senate and White House, Brown became
deputy chairman to the Democratic National Committee (DNC), a position he held until 1985.
Also in 1981 Brown joined the powerful Washington lobbying and law firm Patton, Boggs and Blow, lured
not only by a six-figure income but also by the prospect of becoming its first black partner. The pragmatic
and affable Brown was a successful lobbyist. His client list included Japanese electronics firms; the
telecommunications company MCI; the city of Denver, Colorado; and, perhaps most controversially, the
Haitian government, then headed by the dictator Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier. Brown's lucrative
involvement with Haiti, during which he helped Duvalier's brother-in-law with a drug trafficking charge,
ended when human rights abuses led to the dictator's exile in 1986. Brown retired from active practice with
the firm in 1988 but remained an inactive partner until January 1993.
In 1988 Brown again entered national politics when he became convention manager for Jesse Jackson's bid
to win the Democratic nomination for president. Although the campaign failed, Brown was successful in
forcing the Democratic National Convention to accept elements of Jackson's strong civil rights platform.
Buoyed by his success at the 1988 convention, Brown ran for the chair of the DNC in 1989. Overcoming
conservative, southern, and Jewish opponents within the party who believed he was too closely allied with
the liberal Jackson, Brown, in February 1989, became the first black to head a national political party. That
April some black groups called the new chairman "Ron Beige" for supporting Richard Daley, Jr., for mayor
of Chicago over a black opponent endorsed by Jackson. In his first real challenge as DNC chair, Brown
calmed fears from within Democratic circles that he would steer the party even farther to the left.
Brown immediately began planning for the 1992 election, convinced that the Democrats could win the
presidency for the first time in sixteen years. He recruited volunteers and staff from minority groups in large
numbers and invigorated fund-raising efforts within the party. Under Brown's leadership the national party
began making good on its promise to support local and state candidates; from 1989 to 1992 Democrats won
all seven special congressional elections that were held. But his choice of New York City as the site of the
1992 convention was controversial because the selection coincided with the city's awarding a $210 million
waste treatment contract to a company that Brown served as board member and in which he held stock.
In 1992, when Democrat Bill Clinton was elected president, much of the credit for his victory was given to
Ron Brown. He had hoped to be rewarded by being named secretary of state, but instead Clinton offered
him the top post in the commerce department, the fifth-smallest cabinet agency. Though some criticized
Clinton's selection, in the belief that the president's image as a "Washington outsider" would be damaged by
the appointment of a Washington power lawyer to his cabinet, Brown was easily confirmed, senators having
remembered the contributions made to both Democratic and Republican campaigns by Brown's law firm.
Brown revived and reinvented the agency and his position, becoming a "kind of commercial secretary of
state" (Newsweek, 15 Apr. 1996). Tirelessly promoting American exports, Brown helped to secure
agreements worth nearly $80 billion for U.S. businesses abroad, including a $1.4 billion contract for
Raytheon to build a high-tech satellite system for the Brazilian rainforest and a $6 billion aircraft deal for
Boeing in Saudi Arabia. U.S. exports increased 26 percent over his three-year term.
Despite the administration's praise of Brown's work as commerce secretary, scandal continually dogged
him. In 1993 reports surfaced that he had promised to help lift the trade ban with Vietnam in exchange for a
$700,000 bribe. Brown denied the charges, and later the Justice Department cleared him of wrongdoing. In
May 1995 Attorney General Janet Reno appointed independent counsel Daniel S. Pearson to investigate
charges that Brown had submitted "incomplete, inaccurate and misleading financial disclosure statements"
and that he had accepted illegal payments from a former business partner. Also under investigation at the
time of his death were charges that an Oklahoma company had paid his son Michael $160,000 in exchange
for "influence with the Department of Commerce." Many believed that had Brown lived he would have
been removed from office or perhaps even indicted.
In early April 1996, just as the independent counsel's investigation was getting under way, Brown and
thirty-four others, including twelve executives from large U.S. corporations, were killed when the military
plane used to transport them crashed in a storm in Dubrovnik, Croatia. The purpose of the trip, one of
nearly twenty trade missions initiated by Brown during his tenure as secretary, was to promote American
business investment in the former Yugoslavia, thereby rebuilding the war-torn area in the process. After a
U.S. Air Force investigation, three military officers were relieved of command for allowing the plane to
land with the knowledge that the airstrip had not been approved for bad weather landings.
Just days after the accident, controversy began to surround the circumstances of the commerce secretary's
death. Air Force forensic examiner Lieutenant Colonel Steven Cogswell, who claimed to have viewed
photographs and X rays of Brown's body, reported seeing a bullet-sized hole in Brown's skull. Although
U.S. government officials assert that the wound was the result of blunt force trauma sustained during the
crash, conspiracy theorists believe that Brown, whose body was not autopsied, was murdered because his
indictment by Independent Counsel Pearson was imminent and administration officials feared he would
implicate the president. Attorney General Reno declined to investigate, but rumors continued to circulate,
spread by an unlikely alliance of black groups--including the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People--and right-wing, anti-Clinton organizations.
Ron Brown may have been the most important commerce secretary in history but perhaps also the most
controversial. In 1992 the Washington-based Center for Public Integrity said that no party chairman had
"raised more questions about potential conflicts of interest than Ron Brown" (Economist, 19 Dec. 1992).
Charges of conflict of interest soon carried over into his term in Clinton's cabinet. Although his roots were
in civil rights advocacy, he also was shaped by his years as a lobbyist, during which he honed skills in risk-
taking, scheming, and deal making, attributes that contributed to his success as commerce secretary. A
remarkable conciliator and negotiator, Brown was respected by the white and the black establishments and
was able to move with ease among both. In his eulogy, President Clinton said that Brown had "lived a truly
American life."
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Soups
From the Grill. $10.25
New England Clam Chowder
Grilled Marinated Jumbo Shrimp
Or
Fresh Fish of the Day
Tomato
Grilled Sirloin Steak
(small $1.00 or large $1.50)
Served with choice of Rice, Baked Potato or Pasta &
Accompanied by the Vegetable of the Day.
The Presidential.
$.7.50
World famous White House Crab Cakes.
Served with Roasted Herb Potatoes,
Sandwiches
$5.25
Fresh Asparagus and Remoulade sauce.
Buffalo Chicken Sandwich
Turkey Cordon Bleu Wrap
The "All" American Sub
The Supreme
$6.50
"Veggie" Burger
Tuna or Chicken Salad Sandwich
Choice of Club Sandwiches
Grilled Chicken sits a top a bed of Cheese Tortilline tossed in a
(Turkey, Ham & Cheese or BLT)
Creamy Mushroom Parmesan Sauce. Garnished with Fresh
Grilled Hamburgers or Cheeseburgers
Grated Parmesan Cheese and a Garlic Bread Stick
Salads
Classic Cobb
Fruit Medley with Tuna & Chicken Salad & Cottage Cheese
$6.50
$5.25
Chef Salad
Mixed Greens Topped with diced Turkey, Tomato, Bacon, Hard
Caesar Salad
Boiled Eggs, Avocado, Spanish Olives & crumbled Blue Cheese.
Grilled Chicken Pasta Salad
Served with your choice of Dressing.
Vegetarian Garden Salad
(small $3.50 or large $5.25)
5-5
THE WHITE HOUSE
copies if
WASHINGTON
Vervess
Log
Cohen
November 22, 2000
Podesta
Saunders
MEMORANDUM FOR THE PRESIDENT
FROM:
MELANNE VERVEER
LISEL LOY
DELIA COHEN
SUBJECT:
AWARD OF THE PRESIDENTIAL CITIZENS MEDAL
The Presidential Citizens Medal was established on November 13, 1969, by Executive Order
11494. The medal is awarded by you to U.S. citizens who have performed exemplary deeds of
service for our nation - but of a slightly lesser impact or scope than those performed by
Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients. To date. 90 medals have been awarded overall: 2 by
President Nixon, 57 by President Reagan, 16 by President Bush, and 15 by you. No medals were
awarded by President Ford or President Carter.
We are working with Scheduling to set up a Citizens Medal event.
Dad
Civil Rights
Irene Morgan, 83.
In Gloucester, Virginia, in 1944, Irene Morgan refused to relinquish her seat in the back of a
Greyhound bus to a white couple. Knowing that she had not violated any segregation law. she
resisted arrest and was thrown in jail. Two NAACP lawyers, Thurgood Marshall and William
Hastie. appealed her arrest and $10 fine to the U.S. Supreme Court. Their appeal resulted in a
landmark decision in 1946 that struck down Jim Crow segregation in interstate transportation.
Approve
Disapprove
Discuss
Ruby Bridges, 46.
On November 14, 1960, six-year-old Ruby Bridges, escorted by 75 federal marshals, became the
first African American student to attend William Frantz Elementary School. Today, she
represents the Ruby Bridges Foundation, a nonprofit group created in 1995 to improve
education, visiting schools across the country to share her story with young people. To
commemorate her courage, she was made an Honorary U.S. Marshal in August 2000.
Approve
Disapprove
Discuss
1
PHOTOCOPY
PRESERVATION
John Sengstacke (posthumous; died in 1997).
As publisher and editor of the Chicago Defender--a newspaper his uncle founded in 1905--
Sengstacke provided an important outlet for the African American voice for 57 years. W.E.B.
DuBois and Langston Hughes were among those whose work appeared in Sengstacke's paper.
Sengstacke was also instrumental in the integration of the U.S. Armed Forces--as a member of
the Fahey Commission (one of 10 Presidential appointments he received) and through his
newspaper, he argued that President Truman should integrate U.S. troops. Sengstacke also
persuaded President Franklin Roosevelt to include the first black reporter in a White House news
conference, and he organized the meeting with Branch Rickey that led to Jackie Robinson
joining major league baseball. Under his leadership, the National Newspaper Publishers
Association, an organization of African American newspaper publishers, was formed in 1940.
Among Sengstacke's other publications were the Michigan Chronicle in Detroit, the Pittsburgh
Courier, and the Tri-State Defender in Memphis.
Approve
Disapprove
Discuss
Constance Baker Motley, 78.
A key participant in virtually every important case brought to enforce Brown V. Board of
Education, Motley began her career as an attorney with the NAACP and won nine out of ten
civil rights cases she argued before the United States Supreme Court. One of her most renowned
victories was on behalf of James Meredith, making it possible for him to enroll in the University
of Mississippi. Motley left the NAACP in 1964 and was elected New York State's first black
woman senator. In 1966, President Johnson appointed her U.S. District Court Judge for the
Southern District of New York, making Motley the first African American female federal judge.
She became Chief Judge of the Southern District in 1982 and assumed senior status in 1986.
Approve
Disapprove
Discuss
Jack Greenberg, 75.
Jack Greenberg served as Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund
from 1961 to 1984 and was an assistant counsel for the group from 1949 to 1961. He argued 40
cases before the United States Supreme Court, including Brown V. Board of Education. He is a
founding member of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund and is a member
of the executive committee of Human Rights Watch. Greenberg served as dean of Columbia
College from 1989 to 1998 and currently is a professor at Columbia Law School.
Approve
Disapprove
Discuss
The Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth, 78.
A native of Alabama, Shuttlesworth went on to become one of the leaders of the non-violent
civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s, leading efforts to integrate Birmingham's schools,
buses, and recreational facilities. He established the Alabama Christian Movement for Human
Rights after Alabama banned the NAACP. A confidant of Martin Luther King, Jr.,
2
PHOTOCOPY
PRESERVATION
Withdrawal/Redaction Marker
Clinton Library
DOCUMENT NO.
SUBJECT/TITLE
DATE
RESTRICTION
AND TYPE
001. memo
Melanne Verveer to the President [partial] (2 pages)
11/22/2000
b(6)
COLLECTION:
Clinton Presidential Records
Speechwriting
Josh Gottheimer
OA/Box Number: 24509
FOLDER TITLE:
Citizens Medal
2016-0201-S
rc2185
RESTRICTION CODES
Presidential Records Act - 144 U.S.C. 2204(a)]
Freedom of Information Act - - 15 U.S.C. 552(b)]
PI National Security Classified Information |(a)(1) of the PRA]
b(1) National security classified information [(b)(1) of the FOIA]
P2 Relating to the appointment to Federal office |(a)(2) of the PRA
b(2) Release would disclose internal personnel rules and practices of
P3 Release would violate H Federal statute |(a)(3) of the PRA]
an agency |(b)(2) of the FOIA]
P4 Release would disclose trade secrets or confidential commercial or
b(3) Release would violate a Federal statute [(b)(3) of the FOIA]
financial information |(a)(4) of the PRA|
b(4) Release would disclose trade secrets or confidential or financial
P5 Release would disclose confidential advice between the President
information |(b)(4) of the FOIA]
and his advisors, or between such advisors |a)(5) of the PRA]
b(6) Release would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of
P6 Release would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of
personal privacy |(b)(6) of the FOIA]
personal privacy [(a)(6) of the PRA
b(7) Release would disclose information compiled for law enforcement
purposes [(b)(7) of the FOIA]
C. Closed in accordance with restrictions contained in donor's deed
b(8) Release would disclose information concerning the regulation of
of gift.
financial institutions [(b)(8) of the FOIA]
PRM. Personal record misfile defined in accordance with 44 U.S.C.
b(9) Release would disclose geological or geophysical information
2201(3).
concerning wells |(b)(9) of the FOIA]
RR. Document will be reviewed upon request.
Shuttlesworth helped organize the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and was its first
secretary.
Approve
Disapprove
Discuss
[001]
(b)(6)
Culture/Entertainment
Pete Seeger, 81.
The son of two musicians, Seeger studied Sociology at Harvard University but left to pursue his
interest in singing. In 1941, he and Woody Guthrie formed the Almanac Singers, one of the first
groups to give a voice to social issues. Mr. Seeger was inducted into the Army in 1942, serving
in the Special Services entertaining troops in the United States and South Pacific. In 1948, he
joined the folk group called The Weavers and during the 50s and 60s, he performed for the civil
rights and antiwar movements. In 1955, Seeger was called before the House Un-American
Activities Committee during its investigation of possible subversive influences in the
entertainment field. He was found guilty of 10 counts of contempt of Congress for refusing to
answer several questions, but the Supreme Court reversed that judgment in 1962. Seeger is an
active environmentalist and has long campaigned for peace, equality, and civil rights, while
never compromising his ideals.
Approve
Disapprove
Discuss
Elizabeth Taylor, 68.
A multiple Academy Award winner, Taylor is regarded as one of the great actresses of the 20th
century. She is also the co-founder of and spokesperson for the American Foundation for AIDS
Research. Taylor has donated and raised millions of dollars to fight HIV/AIDS.
Approve
Disapprove
Discuss
Paul Newman, 75.
Leading Hollywood actor and director for four decades, Newman received eight nominations for
the Best Actor Academy Award and won for his role in 1987's The Color of Money. He has used
his fame and his food product line, Newman's Own, to raise millions of dollars for charity. He
also founded the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp for children suffering from potentially fatal
diseases.
Approve
Disapprove
Discuss
3
Health
David Ho, 47.
Dr. David Ho, a distinguished AIDS researcher, was named TIME magazine's 1996 Man of the
Year for his groundbreaking work in HIV research. He is the Director and Chief Executive
Officer of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center and has served on numerous councils and
boards -- advising the Scientific Advisory Board of the National Cancer Institute and the Office
of AIDS Research at the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Ho also serves on the President's
Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.
Approve
Disapprove
Discuss
Dr. Helen Rodriguez-Trias, 71.
A pediatrician for more than 30 years and a nationally recognized health care advocate, Dr.
Rodriguez-Trias has served in several leadership positions in academic and clinical medicine,
including as President of the American Public Health Association. Throughout her career, she
has promoted women's, children's, and reproductive rights, community involvement, personal
responsibility, and guidelines on sterilization procedures. A founder of the New York Latino
Commission on AIDA and a charter member and former board member of the National
Women's Health Network from 1996 to 1999, she was co-director of the Pacific Institute for
Women, a Los Angeles-based non-profit organization dedicated to improving women's well-
being locally and globally since its founding in 1993. Currently, Dr. Rodriguez-Trias works as a
consultant to agencies and foundations, addressing the health needs of various populations,
including women, children. adolescents. and HIV-infected individuals. She is focusing on the
development of effective programs to serve those limited in access: members of minority
communities, the uninsured, and low-income persons and families.
Approve
Disapprove
Discuss
Sports
Hank Aaron, 66.
Aaron began his remarkable career on the baseball field as a minor league player on a segregated
team in the South, where he suffered the humiliation of eating and living separately from his
teammates. He is best known for breaking Babe Ruth's home run record -- ultimately hitting
755 home runs over the course of his career and reaching this milestone in the face of death
threats against himself and his family. After he retired from play, he joined the front office of
the Atlanta Braves, a position from which he called for more African Americans in baseball
management and decried racist comments by baseball club owners. Aaron has also been active
in Big Brothers/Big Sisters and the Boy Scouts of America. In 1995, he established the Chasing
the Dream Foundation, a fund to help underprivileged children in Atlanta pursue advanced study
the music, art, writing, dance, and sports.
Approve
Disapprove
Discuss
4
Muhammad Ali, 58.
Regarded by many to be the greatest boxer of all time, Ali won the world heavyweight title for
the first time in 1964. In 1967, he refused induction into the U.S. Army, was found guilty of
draft evasion, and was stripped of his title. In 1971, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned his
conviction, and in 1974, Ali regained the world championship. He later lost the title and
regained it for a record third time in 1978. In 1980, he retired from boxing. Now suffering from
the advanced stages of Parkinson's disease, he serves as the spokesperson for the National
Parkinson's Foundation and performs charity work for UNICEF and Best Buddies.
Approve
Disapprove
Discuss
Scholars
Anthony Lewis, 73.
The winner of two Pulitzer Prizes, Lewis is well known for his newspaper column, which he
began in 1969, and his work for the New York Times. His career began in 1952 with the
Washington Daily News, and he joined the Times in 1955, where he worked in both the
Washington and London bureaus.
Approve
Disapprove
Discuss
Human Rights
Rabbi Arthur Schneier, 70.
Founder and current president of the Appeal of Conscience Foundation. Schneier has used the
Foundation to advocate mutual understanding, tolerance, and peace. He has served as an envoy
for the last four presidents. In recent years, he has done extensive work to help prevent ethnic
conflict and promote healing in the Balkans.
Approve
Disapprove
Discuss
Marion Wiesel, 68.
A strong advocate for advancing human rights and peace, Marion Wiesel helped her husband to
establish the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity, and she has translated most of his books. In
addition, she wrote and narrated Children of the Night-- a documentary about the 1.3 million
children killed in the Holocaust -- and edited To Give Them Light --a collection of Roman
Vishniac's photography. She works on behalf of the world's children and is helping 800
Ethiopian children in Israel to adjust to life in their new country.
Approve
Disapprove
Discuss
Juan Andrade, Jr., 53.
Co-founder, president. and executive director of the United States Hispanic Leadership Institute,
formerly the Midwest-Northeast Voter Registration Education Project. Juan Andrade has led his
organization in conducting and organizing over 900 nonpartisan voter registration campaigns,
registering over one million new voters. He has worked tirelessly on behalf of the Hispanic
community, voicing its concerns to the media, striving to increase Latino political representation.
5
and preparing Hispanic youth for leadership roles. Through numerous meetings with Latin
American leaders. he has promoted democratic principles in Mexico, Guatemala. Nicaragua,
Panama, and Colombia. He has authored or co-authored more than 150 articles, and a
scholarship award has been established in his name.
Approve
Disapprove
Discuss
Education/Labor
Don Cameron, 62.
A former teacher, Cameron has devoted much of his life to American education, having worked
as the executive director of the Birmingham Education Association, the director of
communication at the Michigan Education Association, and the executive director of the Florida
Teaching Profession National Education Association. He currently serves as the director of the
National Education Association. During his 20-year tenure at the NEA. Cameron has been a
driving force behind the CEO Forum on Education and Technology, a group created in 1997 to
follow up on work done by your National Information Infrastructure Advisory Council. By
serving as Co-Chairman of the Forum during its first year, Cameron advanced the organization's
goal of integrating technology in classrooms. In your digital divide speech at Comdex, you
announced that the deans of more than 200 colleges of education had agreed to measure
their progress on training teachers to use technology -- using a tool developed by the CEO
Forum.
Approve
Disapprove
Discuss
Religious Leaders
Sister Carol Coston, 65.
Sr. Carol Coston has devoted her life to creative and innovative ways to serve the poor and
achieve economic justice for all. She founded NETWORK. a highly effective Catholic social
justice lobby, and she served there for 10 years. As the founding member of the Adrian
Dominican Portfolio she used social criteria to make 93 "alternative" investments, totaling over
3.6 million dollars. Coston has done extensive work with farmer cooperatives around both new
farming and environmentally sound methods. She now serves as director of Partners for the
Common Good where she also uses social criteria for investments, as well as evaluating the
potential leverage loans could offer the borrowing partner and their involvement in shaping
public policy. The first Partners for the Common Good Loan Fund (1989 - 1994) made 49 loans
and deposits to benefit low-income communities in 29 states as well as in Central and South
America and American Samoa. The overall rate of repayment was 99.7%. Currently, Partners
for the Common Good 2000 (PCG 2000) has a lending pool of $7,902,668 from its 99 religious
institutions' investors. She has been a role model for and defender of women both in this
country and around the world.
Approve
Disapprove
Discuss
6
Environment
Former Representative John F. Seiberling (D-OH), 81.
Seiberling's record of accomplishment on environmental issues is astonishing. A Member of
Congress from 1970-1987, he authored legislation that established the 30,000-acre Cuyahoga
Valley National Recreation Area, tripled the size of the Land and Water Conservation Fund, and
prohibited mining in public parks. He also co-authored key amendments to the Surface Mining
Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 and helped manage passage of the Alaska National Interest
Lands Conservation Act. which preserved more than 100 million acres in Alaska. He is credited
with saving more than 69 million acres of wilderness in 27 states, and he authored amendments
to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982.
Approve
Disapprove
Discuss
Disability Advocates
Patrisha Wright, 51.
Ms. Wright earned the nickname "The General" during passage of the ADA for her role in the
overall strategic effort on behalf of the legislation. She has served as Director of Washington
Affairs for the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund (DREDF) since the early 1980s.
Her single greatest contribution has been to establish disability issues as civil rights issues. She
is the only disability community representative on the Board of the Leadership Conference on
Civil Rights, and she was instrumental in obtaining LCCR's crucial support of the ADA.
Approve
Disapprove
Discuss
Dr. I. King Jordan, 57.
Dr. Jordan is the first deaf president of Gallaudet University. His selection in 1988 was the
result of a major alumni and student protest in support of a "Deaf President Now." The student
victory was a huge symbolic boost to the ADA, demonstrating how people with disabilities could
be empowered to take charge of their own lives and be fully integrated into society. Dr. Jordan,
who has an academic background in psychology, is known and respected across the world not
only for deaf and disability issues, but as a proponent of quality higher education. He is also an
elite marathon runner who won the 1996 Grand Slam of ultramarathons.
Approve
Disapprove
Discuss
Government Service
Warren B. Rudman, 70.
U.S. Senator from New Hampshire from 1981 to 1993. he co-authored the landmark Gramm-
Rudman-Hollings deficit reduction law and served as a member of the Appropriations
Committee. He was also the chair of the Ethics Committee and active on the Subcommittees on
Defense and Commerce, Justice, State, and the Judiciary. As founding co-chairman of the
Concord Coalition, he has continued to advocate for fiscal discipline in the federal government.
Appointed as a member of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board in 1993, he now
7
serves as Vice Chairman. In 1998, he was appointed as chair of the Special Oversight Board for
Department of Defense Investigations of Gulf War Chemical and Biological Incidents. During
the Korean War, he was a platoon and company commander. He was discharged with the rank of
captain.
Approve
Disapprove
Discuss
Archibald Cox, 88.
Cox was Special Prosecutor during the Watergate scandal and was fired by then-Solicitor
General Robert Bork. after both Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney
General William Ruckelshaus resigned in protest when President Nixon asked each of them to
fire Cox. An attorney and professor, Cox also served as Solicitor General from 1961 to 1965
under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. From 1980 to 1992, he was chairman of Common
Cause, a non-profit lobbying organization dedicated to campaign finance reform.
Approve
Disapprove
Discuss
Charles DeLisi, 59.
Director of the Office of Health and Environmental Research in the Department of Energy from
1985 to 1987, he set aside the first funding for human genome research and conceived of a
project to sequence the human genome, which eventually led to the current revolution in genetic
knowledge. As Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Boston University, he has advanced
computational research on molecular structure and neural networks. He has served as a scientific
advisor to both federal government agencies and private corporations, published over 180
publications, and received several awards, including DOE's Exceptional Service Award.
Approve
Disapprove
Discuss
Representative Edward R. Roybal, 84.
Elected to the House of Representatives in 1962, Edward Roybal served his congressional
district in California for 30 years, overcoming the initial prejudice of his colleagues to become a
powerful member of several important House committees, including the Appropriations
Committee. In 1967, he authored the first bilingual education bill, and in 1968, he worked to
establish a Cabinet Committee on opportunities for Spanish-speaking people. Throughout his
political career, he introduced and sponsored legislation to protect the rights of Hispanics. senior
citizens, the poor, and people with disabilities. During the 97th Congress, Roybal chaired the
Congressional Hispanic Caucus, where he led the opposition against the Simpson-Mazzoli
immigration bill. In his last two terms, he worked to expand rural mental health care programs,
establish a national mental health education program. halt age-based discrimination in employee
benefits, and provide medical service to people with Alzheimer's disease.
Approve
Disapprove
Discuss
8
Administration Officials
Eli Segal, 57.
From his tenure as Assistant to the President for National and Community Service and later as
both a member of the board and Chief Executive Officer of the Corporation for National Service,
Eli Segal played an important role in launching and maintaining your national service program.
As President and Chief Executive Officer of the Welfare to Work Partnership, he is helping to
move people from welfare to work by educating businesses about the benefits of hiring
individuals on welfare and assisting them with the hiring process.
Approve
Disapprove
Discuss
Robert Rubin, 62.
Robert Rubin's accomplishments are legendary in the worlds of domestic and international
finance. Rubin spent the bulk of his career on Wall Street, where he worked in virtually every
financial market from bonds to commodities. As Secretary of the U.S. Treasury, he presided
over the Administration's economic policy that has led to the nation's longest peacetime
economic expansion. Rubin is credited with promoting initiatives to respond to five international
crises: the Mexican peso crisis in 1995; the Asian crises from 1997 to 1998; and the Russian
ruble crisis in July of 1998.
Approve
Disapprove
Discuss
Charles Ruff (posthumous; died in 2000).
Chuck Ruff had a long and distinguished career of service to the D.C. government, the D.C. bar
association, and the nation. He served as a law professor at the University of Liberia and the
Georgetown Law Center, Watergate special prosecutor, a high-ranking member of the Carter
Justice Department, and U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. In 1995, he left his practice
to serve as District of Columbia Corporation Counsel in order to address problems he cared
deeply about, including juvenile delinquency and abuse. Charles Ruff served as White House
Counsel from 1997 to 1999.
Approve
Disapprove
Discuss
(b)(6)
9
Ron Brown (posthumous; died in 1996).
Throughout his lifetime, Ron Brown broke down barriers for African-Americans around the
country. He was the first African-American partner in his law firm, the first African-American
chairman of the Democratic National Committee. and the first African-American Secretary of
Commerce. As Secretary of Commerce, he worked to open international markets for U.S.
businesses and bring billions of dollars into the U.S. economy. Brown was a strong advocate for
"commercial diplomacy." At the time of his death in 1996, Ron Brown was in Bosnia on a trade
mission to promote prosperity and free enterprise.
Approve
Disapprove
Discuss
MOF
Warren Christopher, 75.
Warren Christopher, Secretary of State during the first four years of your Administration, has
become one of America's most highly respected elder statesmen. Christopher worked under
three previous Democratic administrations as a trade negotiator. In addition, he served as
Deputy Attorney General under President Lyndon Johnson and as Deputy Secretary of State
which
under President Jimnly Carter. Christopher's accomplishments as Secretary of State include
promoting peace in the Middle East, the Korean Peninsula, and Eastern Europe; pushing for the
expansion of NATO helping to usher democracy into Harti; stabilizing America's post-Cold
Warrelations with Russia; and opening markets in Asia. Christopher anticipated growing
threats to our national security, including terrorism and the spread of weapons of mass
destruction, and he took steps to contain them.
Approve
Disapprove
Discuss
10