July 26, 1994
                                            
      FCC CHAIRMAN CHALLENGES URBAN LEAGUE TO HELP MAKE
INFORMATION
           SUPERHIGHWAY A BRIDGE BETWEEN HAVES AND HAVE-NOTS; 
        ANNOUNCES 1993 EEO STATISTICS FOR CABLE AND BROADCASTING
                               INDUSTRIES 

     Calling it an "historic time for both the FCC and for the
National Urban League and our interaction,"  FCC Chairman Reed
Hundt addressed the 1994 National Urban League Conference at
Indianapolis on July 26.  Chairman Hundt spoke about the FCC's
goals of promoting equal employment opportunity; having the
ownership and management ranks in the telecommunications industry
look more like the people they serve; and improving education
opportunities for urban and disadvantaged schools.  

     He also announced the results of the FCC's 1993 Equal
Opportunity Statistics for the broadcasting and cable industries.
The results were not satisfactory, he said, with African-American
employment in those industries well below the percentage of
African-Americans in the workforce, especially in the upper-
management ranks.  Chairman Hundt noted "These results reflect
insufficient movement toward our goal of insuring that the
broadcasting and cable workplaces look more like the American
workforce as a whole.  But we believe the Commission's renewed
emphasis on EEO enforcement will spur improvement in the coming
year."   

     Chairman Hundt, commenting on the upcoming Personal
Communications Service (PCS) auctions, noted that the FCC has
"created a framework in which African-American businesses can
enter this emerging industry on the ground floor -- not after the
industry has been built-out."  Pointing out that the FCC adopted
provisions to ease the entry barriers for minority businesses for
approximately 1,000 broadband PCS licenses, the Chairman pointed
out, "The value of businesses run pursuant to these licenses
could amount to one and a half times the total gross revenues of
the top one hundred African-American businesses in the country
today." 
     
     Chairman Hundt said his vision of the information highway
"is that it is a way for millions of Americans to bridge the gaps
in education, health care and economic opportunity that divide
our country."  He closed by stating "We at the Commission are
committed to building a communications bridge across this gulf.
We do so because it is good for business, it is good for our
children, it is good for our nation, and because it is right." 

                              - FCC -

                       FCC CHAIRMAN REED E. HUNDT
                           1994 NATIONAL URBAN
                            LEAGUE CONFERENCE
                         TUESDAY, JULY 26, 1994

                            [ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS]

       Thank you, Wayne, for that kind introduction.  

       I would also like to thank the members of the 1994
Conference Planning Committee
for inviting me to speak to you today.  It is a great honor to be
here, and to talk to you about
what the information highway means for urban America, and
especially for African-
Americans in our country.  

       This is an historic time for both the FCC and the National
Urban League and for our
interaction.  The League is beginning a new era with its recently
appointed president and
chief executive officer, Hugh Price.  I am very proud to say that
I followed in Hugh's
footsteps by going to the Yale Law School five years after he
graduated.  And in the small
world department, his daughter, in her second year at the same
law school, excelled this
summer as a law clerk in the General Counsel's office at the FCC. 
The Urban League is
very lucky to have Hugh Price to lead it into the 21st century.  

       The Urban League was founded in 1910, and as I grew up, I
knew it as a beacon of
hope and a powerful force for change.  A former president of the
Urban League, Vernon
Jordan, has been invaluable to me during my tenure as Chairman of
the FCC.  Vernon has
always been available to me and always provides sound and
thoughtful counsel.  He is a
national treasure.  I have learned much from him and he has
contributed to the work of the
Commission in many important ways.  In so many ways he continues
to advance the good
works of your organization.

       I am here today to suggest that your job now in part is to
help the communications
revolution -- or information highway -- bring new hope and
opportunity to all Americans, not
just the few and well-to-do.  I want you to help us make the
information highway into a
bridge.  A bridge, of course, has to cross a chasm, a gap, a
divide, in order to be a bridge. 
And the chasm I am talking about is that between what Cervantes
in Don Quixote called the
difference between the haves and the have-nots.

       In our country, to a large degree, this is the chasm
between a world that is largely
white and a world that isn't, between a suburban world that is
largely well-off by any
objective standard and an urban world that isn't.

       I believe the information highway provides a unique
opportunity to help bridge the
economic, social, racial and geographic gaps that divide this
nation. This is what it has done
all over the world.  It brought down the Berlin Wall in Germany
and it brought democracy to 
South Africa.  Let's have the information highway work its magic
here, too.

       All our lifetimes there have been two worlds in America
joined by few, if any,
bridges:  the largely white world of opportunity and reward for
hard work, and the largely 
nonwhite world of diminished chances and persistent injustice.  I
grew up in the first world. 
My parents were the first in either of their families to go to
college, and thanks to the GI Bill,
after the war my father got a law degree from Michigan, a short
drive from here by
Midwestern standards.  I was born a few months before he got that
degree.   Poor planning,
they said.  He meant to get the degree first and job and son
later.  

       So with a wife and new baby, my father arrived in the
Washington area looking for
work just as Harry Truman was getting miraculously reelected and
the Democratic Party was
splitting over segregation and state's rights (not for the first
or last time).

       My parents were solidly liberal.  They voted for Norman
Thomas in 1948 and later 
my mother was the only person in Falls Church, Virginia, who did
precinct work for Adlai
Stevenson.

       But the late 1940's was a time of segregation as I know
many of you know too well. 
My parents, who had come to the South from Wisconsin, were
shocked by it, but we lived
under its regime.  I went to segregated schools through the
eighth grade -- first segregated by
law, then later only by inveterate practice.  And we lived in a
segregated neighborhood.  And
even my favorite teams, the Washington Senators and especially
the Washington Redskins
included only whites.

       As you all know and helped cause, on this issue, the most
important domestic issue of
my lifetime, the country began to change profoundly when the '50s
became the '60s.  At last,
my mother did precinct work for a presidential candidate who won. 
My high school was
integrated.  And almost outside our school doors, Martin Luther
King came to Washington to
give his famous "I Have a Dream" speech.  Hopes for change
swelled.

       
       But since then we have all learned that the history of
America remains the history of
race.  And this is a tortured history, where hope often turns
into disappointment and awful
new problems call out for new solutions.  Now in this decade of
the 90s we have terrible
problems of drugs, violence and broken families, but we must be
of good cheer.  We also
have new solutions including particularly the opportunities given
us by the communications
revolution, also called the information highway.

       When we talk about the information highway, it's advisable
that we all share what we
think it is.

        A Harris poll showed that a majority of Americans
approved of the information
highway, but only one-third said they knew what it is.  

       Here's what I think it is.  First, it is the mother of all
metaphors.  Second, this
information highway is our country's great network of
communications technologies.  I mean
the familiar:

       -       the telephone system that reaches 98% of all
homes;
       -       the cable system that passes more than 90% of
homes;
       -       the broadcast television and radio stations that
provide free programming in
               every American city and town;
       -       the cellular telephone system that covers most of
the country
       -       satellites that offer video programming via
satellite dishes no larger than a
               salad bowl;
       Third, the information highway is also the largest
economic development in our times. 
It is transforming the workplace, the work force, our products,
and our companies.

       As our national appetite for communications technologies
grows -- whether for voice,
video or data services -- so grows the information highway.  The
challenge for us as a Nation
is to make sure that as the information highway revolutionizes
the way in which Americans
communicate, it serves to bring us together as a Nation rather
than to further divide us.

       I do not pretend to compare my experiences of our history
of division with any of you
or to lecture you on its pain or meaning, but I do ask you to let
me share a little of my life so
that we might more easily talk together about what can be
accomplished in the job the
President has been most gracious to give me.
 
       I spent a high school summer working with kids in the
projects of Southwest D.C. 
Now I had studied the speeches and writings of Martin Luther King
and written high school
essays about him.  This I learned was way, way short of what I
needed to do to make a
contribution in that grim neighborhood in the shadow of the
Capitol. 

       But I did learn there about the depth of the gulf between
the two worlds.  

       After college I got my first full-time job, teaching at an
urban school.  

       This was way before the communications revolution and we
suffered a major deficit in
information technology -- we had only books.  And before the
first class on the first day
someone came by and gave me 35 textbooks which I handed out to
everyone in class.  After
a few moments of calm, the bell rang and everybody except me
raced to squeeze through the
door simultaneously.  After about half had escaped, I realized
they had taken their books with
them.  However, I had four more classes arriving and that I was
down to approximately
eleven books.  Those did not survive past lunch.  

       The rest of the year I taught with purple stained fingers
as I distributed wrinkled
mimeopapers.  I'm sure some of you remember mimeographs, although
my children have no
idea what mimeopaper is.  I had to make up the lessons because I
had not even kept one
textbook for myself.  I actually had no idea what I was supposed
to teach in social studies. 
That very first class revealed that the first chapter of the book
was about global climate
change, I think it was global warming if I remember correctly,
and I hope our environmental
Vice-President will forgive me but we were not able to follow up
on that.  We moved into
African history instead.  

       Fortunately, for the curriculum committee and for the
reputation of the teaching
profession, after one more year in teaching I elected to go to
law school.  

       I learned much from the kids I was supposed to teach.  A
lot more than they learned. 
Most of all, I learned again about the depth of the gulf between
the two worlds.  It was still
mighty deep and bridges were few -- as I will mention in more
detail later.

       After graduating, as a lawyer I worked on many civil
rights cases, especially including
work for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund -- thanks to, of all
people, my friend who was only
the second Black to go to my high school.  From there he went to
Harvard Law School and
then to the Legal Defense Fund.  If I hadn't met him in 9th
grade, my life would have been
diminished.

       My colleagues and I were lucky enough to win the cases we
got from LDF.  On those
cases alone we donated more than $2 million in free legal
services over 16 years in total.

       But I received far more in value from those cases than we
spent.  Most important,
I learned from each and all of them that there are many aspects
to the gulf between the two
worlds:  in the two worlds education opportunity is not the same,
business opportunity is not
the same, and even the law does not work the same way.

       Everyone here who heard Martin Luther King's great speech
in 1963 wanted the two
worlds to be bridged right away.  It has taken more time than we
hoped.  

       Now, however, with this communications revolution, the
information highway,  we
have a new chance to realize his Dream.

       The reason is a practical one:  the economy and society
are both changing radically
because of communications.  So we have, quite plainly, a chance
to change them both for the
better.

       In order to do this, we at the FCC have three particular
goals:

       1)      We want to promote equal employment opportunity;
       2)      We want to have the ownership and management ranks
in this sector look more
               like the people they serve;
       3)      We want to improve education opportunities for
urban and disadvantaged
schools.
       
       The first goal is to promote EEO policies in new and
existing communications
businesses.

       The White House's Council of Economic Advisors predicts
that the
telecommunications industry will add more than 100 billion
dollars to the Gross Domestic
Product over the next decade.  This means tremendous new job
opportunities.  Employment
in the communications sector of our economy is projected to rise
from 3.6 million workers
today to more than five million workers in the year 2003.  

       At the FCC, we are also working hard to make sure that
African-Americans have fair 
opportunities to work in the new industries of the communications
revolution.  

       In January of this year, the Commission stepped up the
level of enforcement of its
EEO rules.  We increased the level of fines imposed on broadcast
stations and cable
television systems that fail to maintain effective EEO programs. 
We issued the largest such
fine in the Commission's history.  We are sending a strong
message to any broadcast and
cable owners that are tempted to ignore the importance of these
rules. 

       However, in the communications industry, the employment
picture is not what it
should be or can be.  

       The Commission's most recent statistics for equal
employment opportunity -- which
I am releasing here today -- were collected for the years 1989
through 1993.  The
employment of African-Americans overall and in the management
ranks of the cable and
broadcast industries during 1993 remained the same, or declined
slightly when compared to
1992 figures.  African-Americans are about 11.0% of the American
workforce, but in the
broadcast industry, their representation in management is only
about half as high as that.  
Black males in this category actually decreased from 2.9% in 1989
to 2.8% in 1993.  

       The figures for the cable industry are only a little
better.

       These results reflect insufficient  movement toward our
goal of insuring that the
broadcasting and cable workplaces look more like the American
workforce as a whole.  But
we believe the Commission's renewed emphasis on EEO enforcement
will spur improvement
in the coming year.  We are also conducting a broad-ranging
inquiry to determine ways
generally to improve the effectiveness of our EEO program.  

       The key goal is to focus on the emerging industries.  We
need to ensure, for example,
that the employment profile of the wireless cable operator
receives the same attention and
scrutiny by the FCC as that of wired cable operator.  We need to
make sure providers of
cellular telephone service maintains a commitment to equal
employment opportunity that is
every bit as meaningful as that of the FM radio station owner.  

       Ultimately, our goal  in the EEO area is that providers of
communications services
look more like the communities they serve.  In a dynamic sector
such as communications,
existing technologies merge.  New technologies emerge.  The rapid
pace of change gives us
at the FCC a great chance to encourage industry to meet its
commitment to equal employment
opportunity.  

       Our second goal is to promote ownership and management
opportunities by minorities
and women in the communications business.

       I mention here first our focus on employment because the
experience of employment
in the communications industries, especially in the
upper-management ranks, helps to qualify
the employee for ownership.  On-the-job training, preparing cash
flow projections, managing
sales accounts, tracking employee performance all help prepare
people to be managers or to
succeed as a budding entrepreneur.

       But as these communications industries grow, and as new
industries are created, we
want to make sure that those who have historically been
discriminated against will have a
chance to participate as competitors and owners.

       No we should note that throughout our nation's history,
our government has actively
encouraged entrepreneurs to link our vast country.  The
information highway of the nineteenth
century was the railroads.  More than 150 years ago, private
enterprise began the busy task of
joining our nation through railroads.  In order to provide
incentives for railroad construction,
the government gave out land grants totalling well over 100
million acres.  This acreage
represented nearly 10 percent of the nation's public domain in
the mid-nineteenth century. 
Twenty-nine different railroads received land grants.  Many great
fortunes in America came
from those land grants.  Would anyone here care to guess how many
were owned by African-
Americans?  I think you know the answer.

       While thousands of minorities labored at building the
railroads, not one had a true or
fair opportunity to own and operate them.

       Just imagine -- if American industries had sought to
include African-Americans as
owners at the emergence of other industries, America would
undoubtedly be a different and
better place today.

       It might be that if African-Americans had somehow been
included as owners in these
industries, African-Americans would not today be so
disproportionately unemployed, poor,
impacted by poor health services, and affected by violence.

       Like land in the nineteenth century, the spectrum which we
license at the FCC is a
tremendous natural resource.  The way in which we use spectrum
has the potential to
concentrate power and wealth within the hands of a few, or to
benefit all Americans.

       In this emerging era of communications, access to,
employment in and ownership of
the information industries is essential to bridging the gulf
between two worlds of haves and
have-nots. 

       But at this time, minorities are seriously
underrepresented in the ownership of
telecommunications businesses.  Let's look at the record.  

       --      There are 490 minority-owned telecommunications
firms -- of approximately
               98,000 firms in the industry -- one half of one
percent. 

       --      Of about 10,000 commercial broadcast radio and
television stations, only 300
               are minority-controlled -- about 20 of 1000
television licenses.

       --      Of the approximately 7,500 Cable operators, nine
are minority controlled.
               That's just over one-tenth of one percent.  

       --      Of nearly 1700 electronic computing equipment
manufacturers only one of
               these companies is owned by an African-American. 
That's five hundredths of
               one percent. 

       Now, what are we going to do about these numbers?

       This year, the FCC took historic action to ensure that
minorities are able to compete
for licenses to provide the next generation of wireless telephone
service -- known as personal
communications services, or "PCS."  Yesterday, we initiated the
first auction for radio
spectrum for PCS. 

       PCS -- personal communications services -- refers to the
next generation of wireless
services that will help meet our ever more mobile society's
rapidly growing demands for on
the go communications.  The small lightweight multi-function
portable phones that you can
use anywhere.  Portable faxes and other imaging devices.  New
advanced paging devices that
will significantly improve the flexibility and functionality of
all telecommunications networks.

       Analysts predict that this industry will one day replace
the wireline telephone.  

       In a decade mobile telephony is expected to serve 100
million subscribers and be a 50
billion dollar industry.  

       In the way we are selling these licenses to run mobile
telephone companies I believe
we are creating the most important economic opportunities ever
made "fairly" available to
women and minorities in our country's history.

       We created a framework in which African-American
businesses can enter this
emerging industry on the ground floor-- not after the industry
has been built-out.  The FCC
adopted provisions to ease the entry barriers for minority
businesses for approximately 1,000
broadband PCS licenses.  The value of the businesses run pursuant
to these licenses could
amount to one and a half times the total gross revenues of the
top one hundred African-
American businesses in the country today.  

       We tried to address the root of the problem minorities
have in starting new businesses-
-access to capital.  They say in America you can inherit money or
you can make it -- but the
key really is to be able to raise it.   The auction rules are
designed so that minority businesses
can attract investors-- with bidding credits, tax certificates
and extended payment terms. 

       --      We designed the rules so that they will attract
viable entities intent on
               providing service -- not turning a fast profit.

       --      We provided spectrum blocks in which small
business, women and minorities
               will bid without competition from the big guys
with easy access to big money. 
               

       This industry, which is so vital to the economy, should
look like the communities it
serves. 

       Our third opportunity is to use the communications
revolution to revolutionize
education.

       Today's schoolchildren remain largely shut-off from the
modern information age.  In
that way, their classrooms are little different from those I
taught in 25 years ago.  There are
forty-five million people who from the beginning of the day to
the end of the day, are outside
the scope of these networks, who do not participate in the
information superhighway the way
almost all adult Americans already do.  I am speaking, of course,
of our children and their
teachers in the classrooms.  

       Few poor and minority students have computers in their
homes.  Over 50% of children
from high income homes have computers.  Less than 5% from low
income homes have them.

       Twenty-two percent of white primary school children have
computers in their homes. 
Less than 7% of African-American and Hispanic children do.  Does
it matter?  You bet.

       An experiment with computers in the homes and schools of
inner city New York
children, known as Project TELL, illustrates the point. The study
showed that when "at risk"
students, whose performance tends to worsen over intermediate
school years, had access to
computers they showed less decline in school performance as they
made the transition from
elementary to intermediate school.

       Students in that experiment showed greater learning
capacity and improved self
esteem.  They had a far more positive attitude about their
educational future than they had
before participating in the project.  Furthermore, the computer
proved to be an unexpected
resource for other family members. 

       But above all, the time that children spent on the
telecommunications networks
increased the time they spent reading, writing, and learning
cognitive and technical skills.

       And we can only guess how that extra time will empower
these children as they grow
and enrich their lives and communities.  Access to the
information highway can improve the
quality of life in our communities in other important ways.

       This access means that through Communications we can bring
the magnet school to all
kids, instead of sending just a few kids off to it.  The
magnificent attractive power of
knowledge can draw children to the path of opportunity.  We have
only to make that
knowledge available.  

       This isn't an option I'm presenting, it's an imperative.

       As access to the information highway becomes a stronger
determinant of success,
those without access will fall farther behind.  The gulf between
the two worlds can widen. 
That is why President Clinton and Vice President Gore have called
upon the
telecommunications industry to connect every classroom, every
clinic, every library, and
every hospital in America to the national information
superhighway by the year 2000.  At the
FCC, we are working hard to make this happen.
       That access is particularly critical for children who come
from homes that are
disconnected from the telecommunications network.  More than 15
million Americans live in
homes without a phone: these are homes with children.  While our
telephone network reaches
94% of American households, only about 50% of women with children
living at or below the
poverty level have telephones in their home.  Those kids can't
explore the information
highway at home, or call 911 in the event of an emergency.  Both
basic access in the home
and educational access must be improved.  

       I want to urge you to lead the country, as you are leading
each of the Urban League
chapters across the nation, toward that goal.

       Legislation passed by the U.S. House of Representatives
and now pending in the
Senate can make the difference in whether or not these services
come to underserved
communities.  I appeal to each and every one of you to become
involved in working for the
passage of that legislation in these last few weeks before
Congress adjourns.

       I'd like you to help me and help all of us give all the
children of this country access
to the power of knowledge.  That's why we need your help in
meeting the President's goal of
connecting the classrooms, libraries and clinics by the year
2000.
.  
CONCLUSION
       My vision of the information highway  is that it is a way
for millions of Americans to
bridge the gaps in education, health care and economic
opportunity  that divide our country. 
That bridge will not be built on its own.

       Indeed, unless we act wisely, the information highway will
belike one of those road
projects that ripped apart neighborhoods and divided rich and
poor.  The learning and
economic advantages of the information highway might after all
separate our country more
practically between the haves and have-nots.  It may increase
distrust and disadvantage,
instead of fostering understanding and opportunity.

       Twenty-six years ago Bobby Kennedy was here in Indiana the
day of the murder of
Dr. Martin Luther King.  He talked about the choice before us: 
"Among us are millions who
wish to be part of this society -- to share in its abundance, its
opportunity, and its purposes.
We can deny this wish or work to make it come true."

       If we make Bobby Kennedy's wish, which was also Dr. King's
wish, come true, we
can as Kennedy also said, ". . . halt the dangerous drift toward
isolated enmity which may
soon find us looking at each other across impassable barriers of
suspicion and anger," then
maybe all communities in this nation will be empowered to have
the fair opportunity to
pursue the American dream.

       You understand this.  Your organization has long worked to
promote programs that
empower citizens and communities.  In conclusion, I want to talk
to you about letting the
communications revolution empower our communities and our
children.   After all, the heart
of the American Dream is that we want to do for our children more
than was done for us, to
leave the world better for them than it was left for us.

       As I mentioned previously, in the year after Martin Luther
King and then Bobby
Kennedy were killed, I took a job as a school teacher.  It was a
middle school, grades 7
through 9.  It was tough for teachers.  It was worse for kids.

       Only half the kids who started the 7th grade would
graduate from 9th.  On average, in
three years at my school, a child would fall two years behind in
reading skills.  And if you
got through 9th grade and into the local high school, you had
less than a 50 percent chance of
graduating.  The best way out -- the only way out -- was
physically to get out.  

       And the way to get out was to be permitted to enroll in
one of the city's magnet
schools.  In theory, the magnet was intended to attract the best
kids, so as to accelerate their
learning.  In reality, it was the only  ticket out of an ever
deepening cycle of poverty and
hopelessness.

       I had three students out of 150 who started 7th grade
reading well enough to give
them a chance to be admitted to the magnet school in 8th grade. 
I asked them if they wanted
special tutoring.  We agreed to meet every Saturday at my
apartment for special study
sessions on how to pass the entrance exam.  We did this for
several months.  The day of the
exam came.

       Many of you have probably seen the movie "Lean on Me"
about the New Jersey
principal, Joe Clark -- or the movie "Stand and Deliver",
starring Edward J. Olmos -- who
plays the real life, East Los Angeles Math teacher Jaime
Escalante?  Both were true stories in
which the efforts of dedicated teachers vastly improved the test
scores of their students.  Both
movies had the key to all successful movies:  A Happy Ending.

       But no movie was made about me and my three special
students.  No movie will be
made.  All my students failed the test.  And I failed them.

       I don't know where they are now.  If they have good jobs
and good lives, it's because
they ran into a better teacher or a miracle opportunity.  I gave
them far too little, too late.

       But I did make a promise to myself.  I wouldn't settle for
that ending.  None of us
should settle for that ending.  We must make sure that the school
children of today have
better ways to escape poverty, despair, and hopelessness.  We
have to make sure that the
teachers of today are better teachers than I was, have better
tools than I did, and don't bring
too little too late to their mission as I did.

       Now the information highway won't guarantee happy endings
for all.  It is not a cure  
for all society's ills.  But when I think about what it could
have meant to my students, in
education, in job opportunities, in the chance for ownership, I
know the information highway
can help bridge the two worlds that have occupied the same land
for five centuries yet have
remained too far apart.

       We may not each of us share in a Hollywood happy ending. 
But we can all help
create better endings -- and better beginnings -- for as Bobby
Kennedy said, "The millions
who wish to be part of this society".  These are the millions now
on the other side of the gulf
that divides us.

       We at the Commission are committed to building a
communications bridge across this
gulf.

       We do so because it is good for business, it is good for
our children, it is good for our
nation, and because it is right.  We need your help, as the
country has needed you for  84
years.  I know we can count of you and I thank you from the
heart.