Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, January 18, 1994 TAG: 9401180047
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
Clinton, who has been accused by some civil rights activists of talking more than acting, also used the King holiday to announce the start of an "empowerment zone" community development program and to sign an executive order on housing discrimination.
In a speech to a predominantly black audience at Howard University, Clinton saluted King as the nation's premier voice "for human rights and human potential."
And if King were still alive, Clinton said, he would be asking why there was not more action to stop violence and to bring together people who are afraid of and alienated from one another.
"It is our duty to continue the struggle that is not yet finished," the president said. "We will never do this unless we create the ways and means for people to choose a peaceful and hopeful life."
"We've got a lot of walls, still, to tear down in this country. This is not a problem of race. This is a problem of the American family. We'd better get about solving it as a family," he said.
A year ago, Clinton, then the president-elect, told an audience at the same university that he hoped to redeem King's promise of equal opportunity.
But some civil-rights activists contend Clinton instead has moved their cause to a back burner. They say he abandoned civil rights in trying to steer clear of "liberal" issues and cut the risk of alienating mostly white, suburban voters.
"I haven't seen him promote anything," said New York activist Al Sharpton. "Clinton is like an old James Brown record: talking loud and saying nothing."
And some were put off by Clinton's address in November, when he stood in the Memphis, Tenn., pulpit where King gave his last speech before being killed in 1968. Clinton said there that King would be appalled to see today's rampant black-against-black violence.
Roger Wilkins, a longtime civil rights activist and now professor of history at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., said Clinton failed to follow that speech with action.
"It's despicable for the president not to offer a jobs program when he offers all this gratuitous advice on our behavior," Wilkins said.
Clinton conceded Monday there was much work to be done, but he defended his own record. He said he has five black Cabinet members and the bulk of his nominees for federal judgeships are minorities.
He noted that the Labor Department's office of federal contract compliance had collected $34.5 million in back pay from discrimination complaints and that the Department of Housing and Urban Development had helped "a group of brave and determined African-Americans" integrate an all-white housing project in Vidor, Texas.
"We are working hard to protect rights fought for and won," Clinton said.
Earlier Monday, Clinton announced that his administration was beginning to select economically distressed areas where businesses will be eligible for tax breaks and other new special government assistance.
In all, the government will designate nine "empowerment zones" and 95 "enterprise communities." The program, approved by Congress last year as part of Clinton's budget plan, is designed to make inner cities and some impoverished rural areas more attractive for business investment.
Civil rights activists said they also are waiting for the president to deliver on his promise to appoint a new assistant attorney general for civil rights, among other things.
by CNB