Proclamation 5702—National Employ the Handicapped Week, 1987

The American people are becoming more and more aware of the great potential of citizens with disabilities. We are also realizing that providing equal employment opportunities to handicapped individuals is both the right thing to do and a matter of economic common sense and necessity.

Competitive reality is causing business, industry, and organized labor to urge complete integration of the disabled into the job market. Federal, State, and local governments have also provided significant opportunities for these men and women. They are filling critical gaps in the work force and contributing to productivity, because the demands placed on America's labor resources have changed; because medical and technological developments are opening doors; and, most of all, because these Americans continue to prove that they can perform effectively on the job.

The Congress, by Joint Resolution approved August 11, 1945, as amended (36 U.S.C. 155), has called for the designation of the first full week in October of each year as "National Employ the Handicapped Week." This special week is a time for all Americans to join together to renew their dedication to meeting the goal of full opportunities for handicapped people.

Now, Therefore, I, Ronald Reagan, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim the week beginning October 4, 1987, as National Employ the Handicapped Week. I urge all governors, mayors, other public officials, leaders in business and labor, and private citizens to help meet the challenge of ensuring equal employment opportunities and full citizenship rights and privileges for disabled Americans.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this seventeenth day of September, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and eighty-seven, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and twelfth.

RONALD REAGAN