Proclamation 4468—Native American Awareness Week, 1976

It is especially appropriate during our Bicentennial Year to recall the impressive role played in our society by American Indians, Eskimos, and Aleuts. Native Americans have made notable contributions in education, law, medicine, sports, art, the military, science and literature.

The culture and heritage of our native Americans are unique. In renewing the spirit and determined dedication of the past 200 years we should also join with our native Americans in rebuilding an awareness, understanding and appreciation for their historical role and future participation in our diverse American society. We should do so with the same spirit and dedication which, fostered with reliance on Divine Providence and with firm belief in individual liberty, kindled and made a reality of the hopes for a new life for all who inhabited this land.

In recognition of the importance of the contributions made to our many-cultured society by native Americans, the Senate (September 30, 1976) and the House of Representatives (October 1, 1976) have requested that the President proclaim the week of October 10, 1976, as Native American Awareness Week (S.J. Res. 209).

Now, Therefore, I, Gerald R. Ford, President of the United States of America, do hereby designate the week beginning October 10, 1976, and ending October 16, 1976, as Native American Awareness Week.

I call upon all the people of the United States to join in observing this week with appropriate ceremonies and activities.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this eighth day of October, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred seventy-six, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and first.

GERALD R. FORD