One America in the 21st Century: The President's Initiative on Race | |
History | |
---|---|
Other short titles | The President's Initiative on Race; The President's Advisory Board on Race |
Established by | Bill Clinton on 14 June 1997 |
Related Executive Order number(s) | 13050 |
Membership | |
Chairperson | John Hope Franklin |
Other committee members | Linda Chavez-Thompson Suzan D. Johnson Cook Thomas H. Kean Angela E. Oh Robert J. Thomas William F. Winter |
Jurisdiction | |
Purpose | Convening and encouraging community dialogue, fostering improved understanding of race relations |
One America in the 21st Century: The President's Initiative on Race , or the One America Initiative, was established by U.S. President Bill Clinton in 1997 with Executive Order 13050. The main thrust of the effort was convening and encouraging community dialogue throughout the country. The Advisory Board's principal legacy was the collection and publication of "best practices" for racial reconciliation and dialogue guidelines designed to help communities discuss how to address racial and ethnic divisions in mutually productive ways.
President Clinton introduced the initiative during his commencement speech to the graduating class of the university. In the speech, he discussed his own experience growing up in the segregated south and its profound effect on him. He addressed the continuing problems surrounding race in America and the need to find ways to solve them. Clinton envisioned an America based on equal opportunity, fairness, and respect for all as well as shared responsibility and a greater sense of civility. Clinton viewed race relations as something that too often divided and weakened the nation even as America was rapidly becoming the world's first truly-multiracial democracy. The Advisory Board, chaired by pre-eminent historian Dr. John Hope Franklin, was introduced to the audience as well.
Clinton identified three imperatives for the initiative to focus: expanding opportunity, demanding responsibility, and creating one American community based on respect and shared values.
I want this panel to help educate Americans about the facts surrounding issues of race, to promote a dialogue in every community of the land to confront and work through these issues, to recruit and encourage leadership at all levels to help breach racial divides, and to find, develop and recommend how to implement concrete solutions to our problems -- solutions that will involve all of us in government, business, communities, and as individual citizens. [1]
Judith A. Winston served as Executive Director of the One America Initiative. Several other senior civil rights Presidential appointees and leaders in the national civil rights community served as senior staff for the Initiative.
Among models of diversity in schools, One America Initiative on Race focused on Fairfax County, Virginia, one of the most-culturally, linguistically-diverse school districts in the country. The President's Advisory Board on Race commissioned a Case Study on a local Elementary School in Fairfax, Virginia [2] and their Report "America in the 21st Century: Forging a New Future Report" [3] quotes Linda Chavez-Thompson, about her visit to Bailey's Elementary School for the Arts and Sciences in December 1997 in her capacity as member of the Advisory Board on Race
[I]t is absolutely delightful that the children at the elementary level don't know what color is. . .They understand diversity...they celebrate their differences. One young student said, 'And that makes us one. We all are the same inside.' And I got that very distinctly from the curriculum, from the expression of the parents, from the expression of the teachers.... I was absolutely blown away by how intense these young fourth and fifth graders were in expressing why to them there is absolutely no difference between all of them, no matter what their name is and no matter what the color of their skin. [4]
Robert Bernard Reich is an American professor, author, lawyer, and political commentator. He worked in the administrations of presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, and served as Secretary of Labor from 1993 to 1997 in the cabinet of President Bill Clinton. He was also a member of President Barack Obama's economic transition advisory board.
The National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, usually identified as the National Council of Churches (NCC), is the largest ecumenical body in the United States. NCC is an ecumenical partnership of 38 Christian faith groups in the United States. Its member communions include mainline Protestant, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, African-American, evangelical, and historic peace churches. Together, it encompasses more than 100,000 local congregations and 40 million adherents. It began as the Federal Council of Churches in 1908, and expanded through merger with several other ecumenical organizations to become the National Council of Churches in 1950. Its Interim President and General Secretary is Bishop Vashti Murphy McKenzie.
Martin Joseph "Marty" Chávez is an American politician, businessman, and attorney who served as a member of the New Mexico Senate from 1987 to 1993 and as the 26th and 28th mayor of Albuquerque, New Mexico. He served as the Executive Director of ICLEI Local Governments for Sustainability USA. and Chairman of the Advisory Board for the Center for Green Schools at U.S. Green Building Council. In 2012, he unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for the Congressional seat being vacated by Martin Heinrich, who retired from the House to run for Senate.
Annandale High School is a public high school in Annandale, Virginia, United States. It is part of the Fairfax County Public Schools system.
Dolores Clara Fernández Huerta is an American labor leader and civil rights activist who, with Cesar Chavez, is a co-founder of the United Farmworkers Association, which later merged with the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee to become the United Farm Workers (UFW). Huerta helped organize the Delano grape strike in 1965 in California and was the lead negotiator in the workers' contract that was created after the strike.
Charles James Ogletree Jr. was an American legal scholar who served as the Jesse Climenko Professor at Harvard Law School, where he was the founder of the school's Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice. He was also the author of books on legal topics.
In the United States, affirmative action consists of government-mandated, government-approved, and voluntary private programs granting special consideration to groups considered or classified as historically excluded, specifically racial minorities and women. These programs tend to focus on access to education and employment in order to redress the disadvantages associated with past and present discrimination. Another goal of affirmative action policies is to ensure that public institutions, such as universities, hospitals, and police forces, are more representative of the populations they serve.
France Winddance Twine is a Black and Native American sociologist, ethnographer, visual artist, and documentary filmmaker. Twine has conducted field research in Brazil, the UK, and the United States on race, racism, and anti-racism. She has published 11 books and more than 100 articles, review essays, and books on these topics.
"A More Perfect Union" is the title of a speech delivered by then-Senator Barack Obama on March 18, 2008, in the course of the contest for the 2008 Democratic Party presidential nomination. Speaking before an audience at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Obama was responding to a spike in the attention paid to controversial remarks made by Jeremiah Wright, his former pastor and, until shortly before the speech, a participant in his campaign. Obama framed his response in terms of the broader issue of race in the United States. The speech's title was taken from the Preamble to the United States Constitution.
Angela Eunjin Oh is an American attorney, teacher, and public lecturer best known for her role as spokesperson for the Korean American community after the 1992 Los Angeles riots and her position on President Bill Clinton's One America Initiative.
Bailey's Elementary School for the Arts and Sciences is a public school located in Bailey's Crossroads, Fairfax County, Virginia, United States. The school was founded in 1952 and is part of the Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS). Bailey's Elementary is a Title I School, and was the first magnet school in Fairfax County. Bailey's is located in the Culmore area and many children from that area attend Bailey's.
Anju Bhargava is a management consultant who was a member of President Barack Obama's inaugural Advisory Council on Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnership.
The White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics is a multi-agency working group within the Department of Education charged with strengthening the nation's capacity to provide high-quality education while increasing opportunities for Hispanic American participation in federal education programs. In addition, the Initiative serves as a resource for information related to closing the educational achievement gap for Hispanic Americans. Finally, the Initiative provides staffing to support and coordinate the mission of a President's Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanics.
Alondra Nelson is an American academic, policy advisor, non-profit administrator, and writer. She is the Harold F. Linder chair and professor in the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study, an independent research center in Princeton, New Jersey. Since March 2023, she has been a distinguished senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.
Gilbert F. Casellas is an American lawyer and businessman. He is a private investor and business consultant in the Washington, D.C. area, a director of Prudential Financial, trustee of the University of Pennsylvania, and advisor to Toyota Motor North America, T-Mobile US, and Comcast Corporation. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the American Law Institute, trustee of the Pan American Development Foundation and Co-Editor-in-Chief of Workplace Harassment Second Edition 2018 published by Bloomberg Law.
Arnold L. Mitchem is an American educator and executive who was the president and founder of the non-profit Council for Opportunity in Education in Washington, DC. He currently serves as President Emeritus for the organization.
Cyber-diplomacy is the evolution of public diplomacy to include and use the new platforms of communication in the 21st century. As explained by Jan Melissen in The New Public Diplomacy: Soft Power in International Relations, cyber-diplomacy “links the impact of innovations in communication and information technology to diplomacy.” Cyber-diplomacy is also known as or is part of public diplomacy 2.0, Digital diplomacy, EDiplomacy, and virtual diplomacy. Cyber-diplomacy has as its underpinnings that, “it recognizes that new communication technologies offer new opportunities to interact with a wider public by adopting a network approach and making the most of an increasingly multicentric global, interdependent system.”
The White House Initiative on Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders (WHIAANHPI) is a United States governmental office that coordinates an ambitious whole-of-government approach to advance equity, justice, and opportunity for Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders. The Initiative collaborates with the Deputy Assistant to the President and AA and NHPI Senior Liaison, White House Office of Public Engagement and designated federal departments and agencies to advance equity, justice, and opportunity for AA and NHPIs in the areas of economic development, education, health and human services, housing, environment, arts, agriculture, labor and employment, transportation, justice, veterans affairs, and community development.
The following is a timeline of the presidency of Bill Clinton from January 1, 1997, to December 31, 1997.
Rear Admiral Kenneth Bernard is an American public health physician and expert on biodefense and health security policy. He served at the George W. Bush White House from 2002-2005 as Special Assistant to the President for Biodefense and as Assistant Surgeon General.