PREPARED REMARKS
U.S. TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY RODNEY E. SLATER
26TH BIENNIAL LAY CONFERENCE
AFRICAN METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH
ROCHESTER, NEW YORK
JULY 29, 1999
I am honored to speak on behalf of Vice President Gore at this, your last conference of the 20th Century. And, as a member of this faith community, I am delighted to join you for this planning session on "meeting the needs of the people for the new millennium." The next time this organization assembles, it will be the dawn of not just a new century, but a whole new era in human history.
Rochester is a perfect place to plan how to end injustice and help America move to higher heights. For this is the very city where Frederick Douglass’s anti-slavery newspaper, the North Star, helped change the history of the last century. As many of you know, Douglass came here in 1847 because Rochester was known to be pro-abolitionist, its leading citizens active in anti-slavery societies.
He brought a passion to the cause of ending slavery and expressed that passion with such eloquence, that reading his words today still fire the souls of readers and listeners alike. In fact, he was so brilliant and so eloquent that many in his audience began to doubt that this man could have ever been a slave. We are all the richer for those "doubting Thomases" who questioned Douglass’s resume. Because, in response to these critics Douglass wrote not one, but three autobiographies. I can think of no better location than the City of the North Star to refocus our bearings, reset our moral compasses and set a new course for a new century and a new millennium.
Since this Connectional Lay Organization was founded in 1912, African-Americans have broken down many barriers and overcome the mighty edifice of discriminatory laws. But as the Vice President has said,"Sometimes good laws aren’t good enough." In the 21st century we need to, in his words, "Break down barriers not just in our law books--but also in our workplaces, in our school houses, in our police stations -- and in the human heart."
I have every confidence that, guided by the Vice President’s vision, these are achievable aims for the new century and the new millennium. Especially if you help us achieve them.
I have strong evidence to support this optimism. Under President Clinton and Vice President Gore’s leadership, we’ve made a lot of progress over the past six years:
One of the things I like to say when I encourage young people -- especially African-Americans -- to qualify for high-paying jobs in the transportation industry by studying all the science and math they can stand, is to " Think big; there’s room at the top."
I come not only with a message reflecting the Vice President’s concerns, but as a seasoned member of the AME Church. So, I thought I would just let you know up-front, there will be an altar call before I finish. That’s because we need your help, as a faith-based organization, to move this nation from strength to strength to the next level. And also because, as U.S. Secretary of Transportation, I have a very specific request to make of you.
The Vice President strongly believes in the power of faith-based organizations to alter the destinies of individuals and of nations. And so does the President and this entire Administration. As the Vice President has observed --
"Grassroots change is now driving the best changes in our shrinking world. The Berlin Wall fell, South Africa began its healing, Northern Ireland is laying down its arms. These great changes did not primarily come about because of governments or individual great leaders; but because of lasting change in heart after heart of ordinary people willing to take the leap of faith of seeing the enemy as neighbor or family."
Through the Coalition to Sustain Success, an organization formed at his urging, the Vice President has worked to harness the best efforts of faith-based, community-based and non-profit organizations to help former welfare recipients succeed in the workplace.
This joint effort between government and religious organizations was made possible by a provision of the 1996 Welfare Reform Law, called "Charitable Choice." This provision allows state governments to use public funds to support faith-based organizations providing basic welfare services designed to help move people from welfare to work.
"As long as there is always a secular alternative for anyone who wants one, and no one is required to participate in religious observances as a condition for receiving services" the Vice President points out, "faith-based organizations can provide jobs and job training, counseling and mentoring, food and basic medical care. They can do so with public funds -- and without having to alter the religious character that is so often the key to their effectiveness."
The Vice President’s work with the Coalition has reinforced his belief that faith-based organizations can make a difference in addressing challenges that continue to defy traditional solutions. And this experience has led the Vice President to propose a New Partnership between government and faith-based organizations that would extend the Charitable Choice provision of the Welfare Reform law to other vital services, such as drug treatment, homelessness, and youth violence prevention. " There is a reason," the Vice President says, that "faith-based approaches have shown special promise with challenges such as drug addiction, youth violence and homelessness. Overcoming these problems takes something more than money or assistance -- it requires an inner discipline and courage, deep within the individual."
This New Partnership, the Vice President believes, will invigorate civil society. It will also create new opportunities for public service for the AME Church and other organizations and bring a whole new leadership into the political process -- that of the community. The Vice President’s New Partnership is a logical and creative extension of the commitment he and the president made, when they took office in 1993, to seek a "third way" to meet the needs of the American people.
During the 1960s we discovered that government-directed programs alone cannot assure that every community is connected to America’s economic growth engine. That was the " first way."
During the 1980s we discovered that market forces alone are also insufficient to assure that economic advances benefit everyone, with "no one left out." That was the "second way."
The Third Way, employed by this Administration, bridges the gap between the discredited approaches of the past. We have pared back the role of government without eliminating it, and we have expanded the role of the private sector without relying on it to do everything.
The Vice President’s New Partnership between government and community will move this approach to a higher level. This "politics of community" will be neither government doing everything, nor the churches and charities picking up the slack when government scales back.
Rather, in the Vice President’s words, "It will mean a new era of civil society collaboration...when we are not afraid to make connections between spirituality and politics.
I promised you an ‘altar call.’ For that, I want to return to the memory of Frederick Douglass and his Rochester abolitionist newspaper, The North Star. For President Clinton, for Vice President Gore, and for the U.S. Department of Transportation, our "North Star" is safety -- President Clinton’s highest transportation priority.
As the President said, when he announced new rules to protect the safety of children placed in child safety seats in vehicles last March, "One of government’s first responsibilities is to keep our people safe. And one of the most successful governmental efforts to protect the public is in the area of auto safety."
The President and Vice President have backed this commitment to safety in every way they can. For next year, we asked for a record $3.4 billion dollars for transportation safety in the federal budget. The Administration’s proposal will fight drunk driving, increase seatbelt and child safety seat use and get unsafe trucks off the road. It also includes $132 million dollars -- a 38 percent increase --for rail safety and one billion dollars for aviation safety, an investment that will advance Vice President Gore’s ‘Safer Skies’ goal of reducing fatal aviation accidents by 80 percent within the decade.
These new investments build on record accomplishments in transportation safety since 1993, accomplishments that were made possible because of this Administration’s " Third Way" Strategy and the willingness of the private sector and community organizations to work with us and the Congress to make it happen.
On President Clinton and Vice President Gore’s watch, highway fatality and drunk driving fatality rates have reached record low levels; overall seatbelt use is at an all time high of more than 70 percent, up from 50 percent in the early 1990s. Highway-rail crossing deaths are at a record low level, down 58 percent from 1988. And Railroad employee fatalities are also down 27 percent from a year ago.
And for those who, like me, were impressed with the performance of the U.S. Coast Guard during the sad search for the downed plane piloted by John F. Kennedy, Jr., two weeks ago, you will be interested to know that the Coast Guard often does succeed in its rescue mission, saving a human life, on average, once every two hours, around the clock, every day of the year.
But as impressive as these accomplishments are, the President has said that "This is not a time to rest, but a time to build." And I am sorry to report, that we are like the rich young man in the Gospel story, who came to Jesus and asked, "What do I lack?"
What we lack is getting the simple message to "Buckle Your Seatbelt" across to the African-American community. Last week I joined Surgeon General Satcher in attending a very sobering meeting with representatives of Meharry Medical College of Nashville, Tennessee, and General Motors Corporation, who were releasing the results of their study on seat-belt use among African-Americans. That study confirmed that safety belt use is lower among African-Americans as a whole, and that, as a result, African Americans are more likely to be killed in motor vehicle crashes than whites.
The study also underscored the vulnerability of one of our most precious resources for the new century and new millennium. African-American youth are 50 percent less likely to be buckled than Hispanics or whites.
The safety message is being heeded by other communities. Since 1997, an additional 19 million more Americans are buckling up, and child fatalities are down some seven percent for children between the ages of one and four. Yet, among African-Americans through age 14, traffic crashes remain the leading cause of death.
Seatbelts save lives. If we could get every African American to buckle up, we could most importantly save as many as 1,300 lives and prevent 26,000 injuries and additionally save the nation -- and African American families -- nearly $2.6 billion dollars a year.
As a department, we have attempted to confront this issue directly and forcefully. DOT’s Safe Communities program teaches citizens how to reduce transportation-related injuries in their communities. Through our ongoing campaigns, from Buckle-Up America to Operation Lifesaver to our Stop Red Light Running Initiative, we are working with our safety partners to change personal behavior and teach personal responsibility.
For our first-ever National Transportation Safety Conference last March, I prevailed upon three friends of mine -- Mayor Bill Campbell of Atlanta, Mayor Dennis Archer of Detroit, and Mayor Willie Brown of San Francisco to bring a cross-section of their respective communities together, to participate in live TV forum on safety.
I was following up on the Traffic Safety Diversity Forum which we held in Miami, Florida a month earlier, when we brought together representatives of some 80 organizations, representing every segment of America’s diverse mix of cultures. We came together to discuss underage drinking, impaired and unbelted driving, and law enforcement from a minority perspective.
I am well aware of the African-American community’s concern that traffic laws are too often misused to intimidate or harass. It is the responsibility of every government official to address this. President Clinton has taken a strong personal stand to combat selective enforcement, stating that "As a society, we don’t have to choose between keeping safe and treating people right, between enforcing the law and upholding civil rights. We can do both."
I recently attended a round table discussion on this issue with Attorney General Janet Reno, which was chaired by President Clinton and attended by representatives of the civil rights and law enforcement communities. We were there to seek ways to build trust between police and the communities they serve.
We have done a lot at DOT to deal with all aspects of this silent epidemic of traffic deaths affecting our community. But no matter how hard we try, government efforts alone are not the solution. We need to use the " Third Way," the New Partnership that Vice President Gore has urged upon the nation.
You have gathered here, as the Connectional Lay Organization of the African Methodist Episcopal Church to plan how to meet the needs of the people for the coming millennium.
Yet, unless African Americans -- especially our young people -- start using their seat belts on a regular basis, there will be far to many of our number who will never see the next millennium.
The President has set a goal of 90 percent seat belt use for the country by 2005. This nation spends $150 billion every year on health care costs related to vehicle crashes. This is a huge drain on our communities and a particularly tragic drain on the African American community.
With your help, I know we can make major headway on this. I know this and the Vice President knows this. He has expressed his faith in America and in God very directly and very clearly:
"I believe that God’s hand has touched the United States of America -- not by accident, but on purpose. He has given us not just a chance, but a mission, to prove to men and women throughout this world that people of different racial and ethnic backgrounds, of all faiths and creeds, can not only work and live together, but can enrich and ennoble both themselves and our common purpose."
Tonight I call upon you to come forward and work with me and the Vice President to get this simple but vital safety message across to our people.
"Buckle up African-Americans. We’ve got big plans for you in the new millennium."
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