Remarks on Presenting the Eleanor Roosevelt Award for Human Rights and the Presidential Medal of Freedom - Transcript

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Dec 11, 2000

December 6, 2000

The President. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen, and good morning. Let me begin by thanking Secretary Albright for her remarks and her 8 years of leadership, first at the United Nations and then at the State Department, always standing up and speaking out for human rights.

And my friend of so many years John Lewis, whom I knew before I ever decided to run for President, who started with me, and as you can hear, is going out with me, finishing. [Laughter] In my private office on the second floor of the White House Residence, I have a picture of a very young John Lewis being beaten at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, that I was given when we went back there on the 35th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act. And he has worked now for more than 35 years. I can't help noting that he's still at it. He had a piece in the New York Times the other day making the simple but apparently controversial point that the right to vote includes not only the right to cast the vote but the right to have it counted. Thank you, John.

I also want to welcome James Roosevelt and his wife, Ann, here, and Members of the Congress, Congressman Ben Gilman, Donald Payne, and Ed Pastor. I want to thank Sandy Berger and Eric Schwartz, who have worked at the White House on human rights since the day we got here in 1993. I want to thank, in his absence, Assistant Secretary of State Harold Koh, who tried to come back from Africa today to be here but couldn't make it, and our Ambassador to the U.N. Human Rights Commission, Nancy Rubin.

We're here today to honor six extraordinary people. Like Madeleine, I also want to say that I wish Hillary could be here, but she's at Senator school today. [Laughter] It's been a great 2 days at our house, going to Senator school. I had to make sure that--I said yesterday, I said, "This is your first day of school, and so you have to go to bed early. Get a good night's sleep"--[laughter]--"Wear a nice dress. It's the first day of school." So today is the second day of school, and I'm sorry she couldn't be here.

But I will always be grateful that part of our service involved the opportunity she had to go to Beijing 5 years ago, to say that women's rights are human rights. And I'm grateful that she'll have a chance to continue that fight in the United States Senate.

I'd also like to thank Melanne Verveer, who worked with us every day for 8 years, and for Bonnie Campbell at the Department of Justice and Theresa Loar at the Department of State.

Thanks to so many of you in this room, for 8 years I've had the privilege of trying to bring Americans' actions more in line with America's beliefs. Secretary Albright and John Lewis both said we have made support for democracy and freedom of religion an important part of our foreign policy. We stood up for civil rights and against discrimination at home and abroad and made it clear that America cannot simply stand by when human rights are trampled.

Dr. King once said, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." This is a lesson we can never afford to forget, especially in this fast-forward century, when satellites, E-mail, and jet planes expand the frontiers of human contact and human awareness and bring pain and suffering instantly home to us. Globalization is bringing us closer together, with many benefits, but as with all new benefits, new responsibilities accompany them. And we have both the moral imperative and a practical incentive to do even more to recognize the rights and dignity of every person, everywhere.

In spite of what we have accomplished, which the Secretary of State articulated so clearly, major challenges lie ahead. We can never stop striving at home to become the more perfect Union of our Founders' dreams. That means we cannot abandon the struggle against discrimination and injustice here.

Specifically, let me say, I hope that in this abbreviated session of the Congress, that Congress will send me the hate crimes legislation that we worked so hard for, and which both Houses have voted for, but which a minority may yet be able to prevent. If we don't get it, I certainly hope it's one of the first pieces of legislation the next administration will ask for and sign into law.

We also must continue to support emerging democracies abroad. That means, of course, support for free and fair elections but also support for strong democratic institutions, good governance in the fight against corruption, speaking out when the progress of democracy or the most basic human rights are under threat, whether it's the scourge of slavery in Sudan, the denial of rights to women and girls in Afghanistan, curtailing religious freedom in China.

And let me say especially to the students, religious communities, and human rights activists who have done so much to publicize the atrocities of Sudan, America must continue to press for an end to these egregious practices and make clear that the Sudanese Government cannot join the community of nations until fundamental changes are made on these fronts.