Minority Enterprise Development Week, 1999

Proclamation 7216 of August 25, 1999

Minority Enterprise Development Week, 1999

By the President of the United States of America

A Proclamation

Throughout our history, America's minority
entrepreneurs have contributed to the strength of our
economy and the quality of our national life. In the
18th and 19th centuries, as farmers and fur traders,
shipwrights and sea captains, barbers and bankers, they
forged better lives for themselves, their families, and
their neighbors. Often facing prejudice and
discrimination, they nonetheless succeeded in creating
businesses that energized their communities and helped
to build a dynamic new society.

Today, minority business owners are branching out from
predominantly retail and service industries into the
fields of manufacturing, transportation, construction,
energy, and technology, helping to power the longest
peacetime economic expansion in our Nation's history.
Producing goods and services that generate new jobs and
spur investment, minority business owners have played a
vital role in building an economy with nearly 19
million new jobs, wages rising at twice the rate of
inflation, and the lowest peacetime unemployment rate
since 1957.

All Americans can be proud that we have eliminated many
of the obstacles that in the past hindered minority
entrepreneurs from contributing the full value of their
talents to our society. However, while many minority
business owners are enjoying success, many still face
barriers that keep them from competing on a level
playing field. We must continue to build on the
combined efforts of the private sector and government
to ensure that minority-owned businesses have access to
the capital, customers, and services that will enable
them to succeed in high technology and other rapidly
growing sectors.

Through my Administration's New Markets Initiative, we
are building partnerships between business and
government to encourage investments in areas that have
not attracted investments in the past: inner cities,
rural regions, and Indian reservations. We are striving
to ensure that our Nation's economic expansion--which
has benefited millions of Americans--will reach people
who have been left behind for decades.

We are also working to help minority-owned firms
harness the enormous power of the Internet. The
Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA) at the
Department of Commerce, together with the Small
Business Administration (SBA), provide minority-owned
businesses with the tools they need to succeed in the
Information Age. These efforts range from interactive
educational courses on the fundamentals of E-commerce
to the creation of Phoenix-Opportunity, an automatic
electronic bid-matching system that notifies firms of
opportunities through the Internet. Similarly, SBA's
Pro-Net system provides contracting officers and small
and minority-owned businesses with an electronic
gateway to procurement opportunities and information.

During Minority Enterprise Development Week, as we
honor the many minority businessmen and women whose
energy, spirit, and creativity have strengthened our
economy and enriched our country, let us rededicate
ourselves to nurturing the dreams and talents of all
Americans and to realizing the limitless possibilities
of our free enterprise system.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, WILLIAM J. CLINTON, President of the
United States of America, by virtue of the authority
vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United
States, do hereby proclaim September 19 through
September 25, 1999, as Minority Enterprise Development
Week, and I call on all Americans to join together with
minority business entrepreneurs across the country in
appropriate observances.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this
twenty-fifth day of August, in the year of our Lord
nineteen hundred and ninety-nine, and of the
Independence of the United States of America the two
hundred and twenty-fourth.