Jimmy Carter photo

White House Conference on Handicapped Individuals Remarks at the Opening Session of the Conference.

May 23, 1977

Do you think we are making some progress now? Do you think we have a long way to go? Do you think we are going to get there? Right on.

I'm very proud to be here tonight in what I think is an historic occasion that will perhaps go down in the history of our country as a turning point in the minds and hearts of the American people in their long overdue concern about a large group of Americans, about 36 million, who in the past have too often been ignored.

This is the first White House Conference on the Handicapped. I know that this is a tremendous assembly of leaders who have fought a long and sometimes discouraging battle to arrive here in Washington tonight. But this is not the first meeting. There have been dozens and dozens of meetings, attended by thousands of people in the 50 States of our country, and you have already brought to the consciousness of local and State officials an awareness of potential change 'for the better and many improvements that have already been made.

Labor, industry can work together with government to make sure that, jointly, our efforts are successful. There is hardly a national leader on Earth in all the 150 nations that span the globe, who are not now thinking about two words: human rights. And now we in our own country are applying those two words to the handicapped people of our country. It's long overdue.

For too long, handicapped people have been deprived of a right to an education. For too long, handicapped people have been excluded from the possibility of jobs and employment where they could support themselves. For too long, handicapped people have been kept out of buildings, have been kept off of streets and sidewalks, have been excluded from private and public transportation, and have been deprived of a simple right in many instances just to communicate with one another.

When I was inaugurated Governor of Georgia in January of 1971, I made a speech. And I said, in that southern State the time for racial discrimination is over. And I say to you tonight the time for discrimination against the handicapped in the United States is over. [Applause] Thank you very much.

It would be a mistake for the rest of America to think that the benefits are only going to the handicapped, because when you get freedom, we share that freedom, and when the handicapped get benefits of education and a job and a purposeful life, we all share in the benefits of that education, that job, and a purposeful life.

The bill of rights for handicapped was spelled out in Title V of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and we are going to enforce the regulations that are specified in that bill. We're going to enforce the regulations that tear down the barriers of architecture, and we are going to enforce the regulations that tear down the barriers of transportation.

I know you have heard the announcements made by Secretary of Transportation Brock Adams about the Trans-Bus. We've spent millions of dollars--the Federal Government has spent millions of dollars investing in the kind of public transportation that would serve your needs. And I am going to really enjoy in the future--as soon as those buses can come off the assembly line, and all of the new ones are going to be these kinds of buses--when they come up to you on the sidewalk and kneel down to let you get in.

As you know, section 504, of which I am sure you have all heard and of which I am sure now that Joe Califano has also heard, has provided a framework for the regulations that have now been adopted. And Joe Califano assures me and he assures you that these regulations are going to be enforced.

They require that when programs are made available to the public that those programs are made available to the handicapped public; the employers will give a handicapped person a fair chance to correct the handicap and to become qualified for an available job.

They require the tearing down of the barriers that I have already described to you. When Federal funds come to the Health, Education, and Welfare Department, and later on without delay they will apply to all programs of a similar nature, they will provide that a handicapped child for the first time in the 200-year existence of our country has the right to go to free public schools, and that that child has a right to go to free public schools in a regular classroom with other students.

It's almost inconceivable, and it's a reflection on all of us in leadership positions that these basic rights have been delayed so long. These are times for thanksgiving, but for a sustained demand and a time to assess other opportunities in the future.

The civil rights of handicapped persons is not the only element of the laws that have been put into effect. We have got more than a hundred different programs in the Federal Government already for the handicapped. They are administered by many different agencies. There are a lot of different kinds of definitions for the handicap of the same person, and that means that many of you who have sought for a long time to take advantage of these programs, which the Congress and my predecessors in the White House have passed, have often had to go to four or five or six different agencies to get the simple treatment or opportunities which you deserved under the law.

It's time for us to change that, and one of the very good benefits of the reorganization authority that Congress has now given me is to bring all those programs for the handicapped together into one agency so you can understand them and take advantage of them.

As I look across this tremendous auditorium, with many different kinds of handicaps represented here, I know that many of them could have been prevented in your early life. And we are not just concerned about the correction of an existing handicap or an opportunity for those who are handicapped; we want to prevent the handicaps that might occur in the future.

We've already proposed to the Congress a program for the screening, the health screening, of poor children, and within just a few years we will multiply five times the number of poor, young children who have a chance to see a doctor early in their life so their potential handicap or affliction might be prevented or corrected.

We now have 35 percent of the young children in this country who are not even immunized or inoculated against preventable diseases. When I was 'a child many years ago, almost 100 percent of all American children were immunized. We have started a new program now under Joe Califano's leadership and have .asked the Congress for authority to increase greatly this immunization program so that within just a short time we intend to approach the 100 percent level again.

There is a hope that there will never be any lack of memory for the struggle that has been effective in making this night and this conference possible. We want to be sure that we don't forget the handicapped among us who cannot hold a job, who cannot respond to a full education, but we want to make sure that even when they are dependent for constant help, that they have every chance to grow and to learn and to take advantage of whatever great or small talent or ability God might have given them. We can't forget them.

In closing, I want to ask you to do one more thing, and that is that since you've bound yourselves together in a common purpose, understanding one another and overcoming the differences that exist among you, that now you try to understand the special needs of the nonhandicapped, to understand the needs of other handicapped people.

It's not a time for hatred or lashing out or recrimination or condemnation of the nonhandicapped for the long delays in meeting your needs, because many people who are not handicapped can't understand those special needs. So, it's a time of education both ways, and for a realization that only when we work together--the handicapped who are leaders, the handicapped who will always be dependent, the potentially handicapped child who wants to have that prevented and the nonhandicapped adult leader--when we work together, we can continue to make even greater progress.

I know that in my own life I have been inspired by the courage that exists among many of you. One of my most proud moments was when we administered the oath of office to Max Cleland, a young man who now heads up a tremendous Federal agency, the Veterans Administration. When he was a tiny child he used to always ask God some day to let him work for his country and serve other people. He went to Vietnam as a volunteer after he was qualified, having finished college for his own professional career. He stepped out of a helicopter one day and saw a hand grenade on the ground, and trying to protect his fellow servicemen, he lost two legs and one arm.

He stays in a wheelchair. But I have never been around Max Cleland when I realized or thought that he had any handicap that constrained the full realization of his early prayers, because he serves in Government and he serves his fellow human beings. He's an inspiration to me, and his is an exhibition of constant courage which many of you also exhibit so well.

When I made my inauguration speech just a few weeks ago, I quoted a schoolteacher of mine, Miss Julia Coleman. She was a principal in a tiny school where I attended when I was a country boy. She taught me above and beyond the classroom how to write themes and how to debate and how to appreciate works of art and how to understand good music and how to read books that I would otherwise never have known to exist.

She was crippled, and she couldn't see the children in her classroom. I think she would have been a good teacher had she not been handicapped, but I think that knowing about her own shortcomings in a physical way gave an extra dimension and depth to her caring about other people.

Your conference is important. You're intelligent, courageous leaders. But because you have experienced suffering and because you have overcome it, I think the recommendations that will be coming from you that will affect the lives of many millions of people now and in the future will have that same extra dimension.

Our country needs you, and I know that you will never disappoint those who look to you for leadership.

Thank you very much.

Note: The President spoke at 8:05 p.m. in the Grand Ballroom at the Sheraton-Park Hotel.

Jimmy Carter, White House Conference on Handicapped Individuals Remarks at the Opening Session of the Conference. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/243110

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