P R O C E E D I N G S

SECRETARY CUOMO: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. First of all this evening, thank you very much. I want to thank the 100 Black Men Organization. This is a great, great host, and I appreciate this fun-filled evening. Your President Tom Dortch and I have also had the pleasure this evening to join with my great, great colleague, my friend, Madam Secretary Alexis Herman, the Secretary of the Department of Labor.

The goal and the issues of your organization are exactly right, making this breakthrough for the American people work for everyone, everywhere. We have a great economy, the best economy in history right now, but let's make sure that the economy and the riches and the prosperity are shared by all the American people.

That's your agenda; that's your goal. It's also the goal of President Clinton, making the education system work so that everyone has that same opportunity. That's what you're doing, to make men free to work, to get the economy going, job development. That's what they're doing in the Department of Labor, moving people off welfare certainly, but that means you need a job and the opportunity at the other end of the spectrum.

That's what we're working to do together. A success that the Clinton Administration has had, is due in no small part to the good work that you're doing all across this nation, and we can't thank you enough.

Looking at your agenda and looking at all those issues that you're working on, the one common denominator is race. Housing problems are racial problems. Economic problems are racial problems. Education problems and education disparities are racial problems.

God bless President Clinton for having the courage to put that issue on the table for the American people. The simple, plain, ugly truth is that racism is alive and well in America in 1998, and it's not going to go away if we don't have the courage to admit it, and then the courage to address it.

That's what President Clinton says when he says one America. Let's discuss it. Let's get down to it. Let's resolve it. You have the President's leadership. Now we have to get the rest of this nation to focus on that challenge.

We have to start in this town, and we have to start with this United States Congress. We have spent a lot of time over these past few weeks. We've spent a lot of taxpayer dollars, a lot of hours of elected officials consumed, obsessed with matters that mean nothing to people who are out there in the country. It means absolutely nothing.

Millions of dollars of investigations, millions of things, and we haven't said anything about education or mentoring or economic development. Obsessed, obsessed with one man's say to the press.

We have many other matters that need to be taken care of. Let's get down to business. That's what this nation elected this Congress to do. Let's do it together.

Thank you very much.