Remarks at a candlelight vigil honoring the Little Rock Nine in Little Rock, Arkansas

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Oct 6, 1997

Thank you very much, Leta. Dr. and Mrs. Titus, members of the board, Tianka Mitchell and students and faculty. Let me say, I thought Tianka did a fine job' representing the students here and spoke very well.

Hillary and I are delighted to be joined by a number of members of our administration, including Secretary of Transportation Rodney Slater, Bob Nash, and Janis Kearney and Carroll Willis. And there may be others here, but I thank them all for coming.

I know there are a lot of officials out there. I see Senator Walker and Mayor Hays, and I'm sure there are others. I thank you for coming. Thank you, Daisy Bates. Reverend clergy, thank you for coming. And especially, of course, to the Little Rock Nine, I'm delighted to see all of you. We're really getting to be old friends now. [Laughter]

And you just heard an address from the person I have picked to be chief of the Presidential speechwriting division for the remainder of my term in office. That was a terrific job, not only because he spoke so well but because of what he spoke. And I want to come back to that in a moment.

I love Philander Smith. I used to jog by here most every morning. If it wasn't too early, usually the students would be out walking around and say hello to me. I've seen the physical improvements in the campus, and they're very impressive, and I congratulate you on them. You know Carroll Willis and Lottie Shackelford and my great friend, the late Mahlon Martin, all were graduates of Philander Smith, so I have been personally benefited by this school. And I thank you for that.

But I have to say a special word of appreciation to the choir, because the choir was the first choir from an historically black college to sing at the Presidential Inauguration - mine, in 1992. And I thank you very much for that. They've been back to Washington quite a few times since, and it's always a better place when they're there.

Let me say, tonight especially we have come, I would hope, to do two things. Nothing we can ever do, I think, will equal the emotional impact that the ceremony the day before yesterday in front of Central High School had not only on our State but, I think, on the entire country. I was in Texas yesterday and person after person after person came up to me, just overwhelmed by what they saw on the television and by the sight of the Little Rock Nine walking through the front doors, unimpeded.

As I understand it, the first thing we wish to do, and one which Dr. Roberts has already spoken about, is to acknowledge that there were others who may never have gotten their names in the newspapers, who had a lot to do with the way these young people turned into successful adults and were able to carry on their courageous struggle: parents and family members who were threatened with the loss of their jobs; neighbors who gave them everything from money to food to transportation; and of course, the faculty here at Philander Smith, who volunteered to tutor them, an extraordinary gift. And I would say to all of you who were involved in that, they all turned out pretty well, and I thank you for that.

The second thing that I would like to respectfully suggest is that as we participate in this candlelight vigil, I would like to return to something I said at the end of my remarks. I think it is important, very important in life, perhaps the most important .thing of all, obviously, to have a reconciled heart, to do things in the right way for the right reasons. But at some point it's also important that you do the right things, that the things you are doing make sense and move forward in our eternal struggle to open up genuine opportunity and make genuine advances. We can do better.

After the ceremony on Thursday, just for example, I stayed outside quite a long while. And I know a lot of people had to go in, it was very hot, but there were so many people there who had stayed there, and I wanted to shake their hands and listen to them, and there were especially a lot of young people there. And I shook hands, I'll bet, for an hour at the ceremony. And one young man came up to me and said he appeared to be a high-school-age student - and he said, "Mr. President," he said, "I like this, and I like what you've said. But what are we going to do about all of us who are being dragged into these gangs, and how are we going to save kids' lives and keep them from doing that?"

So that's as good a place to start as any. If we have the right attitude about this and we know that one thing we have to do is to open up genuine access to educational opportunity and make sure whatever educational opportunity any child has in this district, it is excellence personified, how are we going to get all the children there in a position to take advantage of it?

I've worked hard in the last 5 years to make our streets and our neighborhoods and our schools safe. But we're still losing too many of our kids to gangs and to guns and to drugs. We are. You know, in the generation where we grew up, one of the reasons they did so well is that their parents and their grandparents and their neighbors instilled in them a code of conduct which meant if they ever got the least little chance, they would make the most of it. If they ever got the least little chance, they would make the most of it.