Presidential Documents

Federal Register / Vol. 65, No. 226 / Wednesday, November 22, 2000 / Presidential Documents 70277

Proclamation 7381 of November 17, 2000

Thanksgiving Day, 2000

By the President of the United States of America

A Proclamation

We have much to be grateful for this Thanksgiving Day. Our Nation is

free, prosperous, and at peace. The remarkable growth in human knowledge

and technological innovation offers real hope for defeating the age-old enemies of humanity: poverty, famine, and disease. Our dynamic economy

continues to generate millions of new jobs, and, as wages rise and unemployment falls to its lowest level in more than a generation, millions of American

families are sharing in the bounty of this great land for the first time.

Sharing in God’s blessings is at the heart of Thanksgiving and at the core

of the American spirit. At Plymouth in 1621, the Pilgrims celebrated their

first harvest in the New World thanks to the generosity of their Native

American neighbors. In return, the Pilgrims invited these tribal members

to share in their harvest festival. At Thanksgiving this year and every year,

in worship services and family celebrations across our country, Americans

carry on that tradition of giving, sharing not only with family and friends,

but also with those in need throughout their communities.

Every generation of Americans has benefited from the generosity, talents,

efforts, and contributions of their fellow citizens. All of us have been enriched

by the diverse cultures, traditions, and beliefs of the millions of people

who, by birth or choice, have come to call America their home. All of

us are beneficiaries of our founders’ wisdom and of the service and sacrifice

of our men and women in uniform. While Americans are an independent

people, we are interdependent as well, and our greatest achievements are

those we have accomplished together.

As we celebrate Thanksgiving, let us remember with gratitude that despite

our differences in background, age, politics, or race, each of us is a member

of our larger American family and that, working together, there is nothing

we cannot accomplish in this promising new century.

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 Thursday, November

23, 2000, as a National Day of Thanksgiving. I encourage all the people

of the United States to assemble in their homes, places of worship, and

community centers to share the spirit of fellowship and prayer and to

reinforce the ties of family and community; to express heartfelt thanks

to God for our many blessings; and to reach out in gratitude and friendship

to our brothers and sisters across this land who, together, comprise our

great American family.

70278 Federal Register / Vol. 65, No. 226 / Wednesday, November 22, 2000 / Presidential Documents

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this seventeenth

day of November, in the year of our Lord two thousand, and of the Independ-

[FR Doc. 00–30023

Filed 11–21–00; 8:45 am]

Billing code 3195–01–P

ence of the United States of America the two hundred and twenty-fifth.

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