Bill Clinton: “February 19, 1999 Thank you. First of all, I'd like to welcome this distinguished assemblage here: Dr. King and the…”

“February 19, 1999 Thank you. First of all, I'd like to welcome this distinguished assemblage here: Dr. King and the members of the Flipper family and your friends, Secretary West, Congressman Clyburn, General Powell, Deputy Secretary Hamre, Under Secretary de Leon, General Ralston, General Reimer, Secretary Caldera. I understand we're joined by Clarence Davenport, the sixth African-American graduate of West Point, other distinguished West Point graduates who are here. Welcome to all of you. There's one person who could not be here today--Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder, I'm glad to see you--the one person who could not be here today I want to acknowledge, and that is Senator Max Cleland from Georgia, who has done a lot to make this day possible. We thank him in his absence. I welcome you all to an event that is 117 years overdue. Here in America's house of liberty, we celebrate ideas like freedom, equality, our indivisibility as one people. Great leaders lived here, people like Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Lincoln, the Roosevelts, after whom this room is named. All of them deepened the meaning of those words while they lived here. But we must be candid and say that the special quality of American freedom is not always extended to all Americans.…”