Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law Remarks at a White House Reception.

First of all, let me say that I'm very proud to welcome you to the White House and to have you here with me. It's always gratifying and very rare for a President to be associated with success, and you all have proven a remarkable degree of success in one of the finest and most idealistic and successful endeavors, I think, that our country has seen.

I know that 15 years ago, here in this White House, many people, Bernie Segal, the late Harrison Tweed, Lloyd Cutler, and others, came together to form the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law. At that time our Nation faced an almost hopeless prospect of transforming the ideals and the dreams of many people who were suffering from deprivation and discrimination into the realization of those hopes. And you had confidence that this challenge could be met successfully.

You've been a great help, not only to my predecessors here in the White House, and to me, but more importantly, you've helped those who were least able to help themselves. And as a southerner, one who's seen the remarkable transformation, not only among those who were previously deprived but among those who were reluctant to see the changes made, I can express to you from the bottom of my heart the appreciation of a grateful nation.

We've had an opportunity to expand a few dedicated, competent professionals who work full time at the enhancement of basic civil rights into literally thousands of volunteers from some of the most prominent law firms in our country and, of course, some small independent lawyers as well.

This has obviously been helpful to the furthering of civil rights for those who need legal assistance. But it's also provided an avenue backward—or perhaps it would be better to say in the other direction-because it has made the establishment figures, the wealthy, the secure, the blessed, the influential citizens of many communities around our country become personally acquainted with the deprivations that they would otherwise never have understood. And I believe that there has been an arousing of the consciousness of our Nation about a challenge that was potentially crippling to our societal structure and which has proven, under your leadership and with your dedication, to be so successful.

We brought several of your active members into my administration. I won't try to name them all. Drew Days is obviously one, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Cyrus Vance, Joe Califano, and others. I hate to go down the list. But I think that this is a credit to our Government, that there could be a climate here wherein they felt they could continue their good work from a varied series of perspectives, from the Secretary of State to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and in agencies in between, whose motivation and purpose is benevolent in character.

I know that you've also extended your influence in a beneficial way overseas, providing help for those who suffer from racial discrimination, for instance, in South Africa.

I've had a chance to triple the amount of money that we spend for the enhancement of civil rights. We are trying to reorganize the structure so that there would be a clearer assignment of responsibility and also a clearer identification of the reasons for delay or failure. And Eleanor Holmes Norton is one who has the background and experience and the dedication, the tenacity, the reputation and esteem to make this transformation be felt in the way in which it has been intended.

We'll continue with these efforts, and I come here, to summarize, to first of all thank you for the great work that you have done in the past, to express my gratification at being a present part of it, to recognize from the perspective of the Presidency itself what it has meant to our entire country, and perhaps even to the world, and to express my belief and confidence that your achievements in the future will, if possible, be even greater for those who need us most.

Thank you very much.