Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 114 Part 6.djvu/300

 114 STAT. 3356 PROCLAMATION 7334—AUG. 26, 2000 The unprecedented strength of America's free enterprise system demonstrates that when people have access to the tools and opportunities they need, there is no limit to what they can achieve. During Minority Enterprise Development Week, let us reaffirm our national commitment to equality in the economic as well as the civic life of our Nation by providing minority entrepreneurs around the country with an equal opportunity to use their abilities, creativity, and motivation to move our Nation forward. By doing so, we will help preserve America's leadership in the global economy. 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 24 through September 30, 2000, as Minority Enterprise Development Week, I call on all Americans to join together with minority entrepreneurs across the country in appropriate observances. IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty- fourth day of August, in the year of ouj Lord two thousand, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and twenty-fifth. WILLIAM J. CLINTON Proclamation 7334 of August 26, 2000 Women's Equality Day, 2000 By the President of the United States of America A Proclamation In March of 1776, 4 months before the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Abigail Adams sent a letter to her husband John in Philadelphia, where he was participating in the Second Continental Congress. "...[I]n the new Code of Laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make," she wrote, "I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors." Almost a century and a half would pass before her desire was realized with the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, guaranteeing women's suffrage. The road to civic, economic, and social equality for women in our Nation has been long and arduous, marked by firustrations and setbacks, yet inspired by the courageous actions of many heroic Americans, women and men alike. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Sojourner Truth, Lucretia Mott, Frederick Douglass, Lucy Stone—^these and so many others refused to remain silent in the face of injustice. Speaking out at rallies, circulating pamphlets and petitions, lobbying State legislatures, risking public humiliation and even incarceration, suffragists slowly changed the minds of their fellow Americans and the laws of our Nation. Thanks to their efforts, by the mid-19th century some States recognized the right of women to own property and to sign contracts independent of their spouses. In 1890, Wyoming became the first State to recognize a woman's right to vote. Thirty years later, the 19th Amendment made women's suffrage the law of the land. But it would take another 40

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