Clinton Meets With Race Advisory Board

'We have to imagine how this is going to play out in the real world.'

WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, Sep. 30) -- Meeting with his advisory board on race relations Tuesday morning, President Bill Clinton suggested that the panel "go forward from here" by looking at ways to improve educational and economic opportunities for minorities.

Speaking to the seven-member board, Clinton suggested an examination of day-to-day interactions between people of different races, such as in schools or the workplace. "It's very important that we throw this into the future now, we begin to focus on it," Clinton said.

"Somehow we have to imagine how this is going to play out in the real world," Clinton said.

The group is holding its second meeting since its inception last June when Clinton announced his year-long dialogue on race relations.

Today, Clinton announced $15 million in government grants to help local communities fight housing discrimination. "It's clear to me that there's more housing discrimination in America than I thought there was when I became president, and that's been kept alive too long in too many neighborhoods," he said.

The president also praised Housing and Urban Development Secretary Andrew Cuomo's increased enforcement of fair housing laws, that has already yielded charges against people in Worchester, Mass., Buffalo, N.Y., and Caldwell, Idaho.

The board's chairman, John Hope Franklin, has proposed that Clinton issue a presidential apology on behalf of the nation for either slavery or segregation, but White House aides say that the president isn't prepared to do that yet.

"If you must do something now, today, the president doesn't think any kind of apology would be productive at this point," White House spokesman Joe Lockhart said yesterday.

Franklin said any apology would have to include segregation because it endured for so long after slavery was officially abolished. "The most rigid apartheid laws this country has ever seen were passed in this century," he said.

"What are you going to do about all of the examples and practices of degradation and humiliation and segregation practiced in the 20th century? An apology for slavery is not going to do it," Franklin said.

Clinton also announced that his first town hall meeting on race relations is scheduled for Dec. 2. No location was given.

The president's advisory board is made up of two former governors, William Winter of Mississippi and Tom Kean of New Jersey; Linda Chavez Thompson, executive vice president of AFL-CIO; Angela Oh, past president of the Korean American Bar Association of Southern California and an active participant in reconciliation efforts following the Los Angeles riots; the Rev. Suzan Johnson Cook, senior pastor of the Bronx Christian Fellowship; and Robert Thomas, president and chief executive officer of Nissan USA.

In Other News:

Tuesday Sept. 30, 1997

• Ickes To Testify Next Week
• Critics On The Right Snipe At Sen. Thompson
• Negotiators Agree To Allow Pay Increase For Congress
• N.Y. Lieutenant Gov. Joins Democratic Party
• Clinton Meets With Race Advisory Board
• Clinton Bids Goodbye To Retiring Military Chief
• Congress Extends Immigration Filing Deadline

E-mail From Washington:
• Justice Moves A Step Closer To Independent Probe Of Gore