Proclamation 6852

By the President of the United States of America A Proclamation

Blessed with an extraordinary diversity of people from every culture and nation around the globe, the United States has always drawn strength from our citizens' shared commitment to the importance of family life. The family is society's most basic unit, daily providing the acceptance, love, and reassurance that enable each of us to flourish and succeed. It creates the earliest and strongest bonds between individuals-bonds that we seek to build upon to improve our Nation as a whole.

Families are where we first learn important lessons about responsibility and where we absorb the ideals and traditions that define our unique American character. Yet we must do more to address the variety of troubles, such as substance abuse, domestic violence, and teenage pregnancy that have placed strains on the American family and threaten the well-being of our young people. At the same time, our efforts to combat crime and poverty cannot fully succeed until we rebuild our families and renew our commitment to their progress. A strong network of community, State, and national partnerships can also help families to face the challenges of everyday life.

This week, as young and old gather around the Thanksgiving table, it is crucial that we embrace and empower American families, offering them the opportunities they need to thrive and grow. Let us each take time to appreciate the value of our family relationships and rededicate ourselves to building essential ties of kinship among all people.

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 November 19 through November 25, 1995, as National Family Week. I call upon Federal, State, and local officials to honor American families with appropriate ceremonies and programs; I encourage educators, community organizations, and religious leaders to celebrate the moral and spiritual strength to be drawn from family relationships; and I urge all the people of the United States to reaffirm their own familial bonds and to reach out to others in friendship and goodwill.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this fifteenth day of November, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and ninety-five, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and twentieth.

William J. Clinton

[Filed with the Office of the Federal Register, 11:48 a.m., November 20, 1995]