Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 108 Part 6.djvu/1053

 PROCLAMATION 6717—SEPT. 10, 1994 108 STAT. 5621 quested the President to issue a proclamation in observance of this month. NOW, THEREFORE, I, WILLIAM J. CLINTON, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim September 1994 as Classical Music Month. I urge all Americans to observe this month with appropriate ceremonies and activities. IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereimto set my hand this twenty-second day of August, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and ninety-four, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and nineteenth. WILLIAM J. CLINTON Proclamation 6717 of September 10, 1994 National Gang Violence Prevention Week, 1994 By the President of the United States of America A Proclamation Robert Sandifer was 8 years old the first time he was arrested by police. He was 11 years old when he died, a victim, police believe, of a gang-related killing. He was also suspected of killing Shavon Dean, an innocent victim of an earlier gang-related shooting. In Shavon and Robert's hometown, the number of gang homicides has nearly tripled since 1980. And in neighborhoods across America, too many motiiers and fathers have experienced the anguish of losing a child to the meanness of the streets. For them and for all of us, it is past time to end the violence. At younger and younger ages, boys and girls are turning to gangs. For a child without an involved family, a gang offers a feeling of belonging. For a young person without options for tomorrow, a gang offers a sense of purpose. For all those born in a home cordoned off against danger, with bars on the windows and chains on the doors, life on the streets seems all too often a taste of freedom they have never known. But American freedom is better than that. We know this. We see freedom at work every day in the determined faces of parents striving to make a better life for themselves and their children. And we see it every day in big cities and small towns across the country as Americans come together to put the spirit of community to work. Confronted with the horror of children planning their own funerals, our Nation has begun planning for the future. Our first, best hope is in the common cause of those around us. A community that shares life's experiences can be an important source of strength and understanding in a world that seems filled with growing violence and diminishing hope. Families and communities are coming together across the country to bring hope to even our most troubled youth. In Birmingham, Alabama, where police officers are sponsoring athletic teams and tutoring programs in 52 neighborhoods, youth crime has dropped by 30 percent. In Los Angeles, teachers and sheriffs are working in teams to show kids alternative methods of resolving conflicts, encouraging them to develop a sense of self-worth apart from gangs. The 1994

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