Proclamation 4607—Thanksgiving Day, 1978

Since 1621, the people of this country have gathered each year to celebrate with a feast their good fortune in their continuing ability to provide for families and friends.

On this Thanksgiving Day, we reaffirm our faith in our heritage of freedom, and our spirit of sharing.

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, Americans humbly recognize how fortunate we are to be strong--as individuals, and as a nation. It is that strength which allows us to display compassion for those around the world who face difficulties that our forefathers, blessed with the American land, were able to overcome.

While Providence has provided Americans with fertile land and bountiful harvests, other nations and peoples have not been so favored. Each year growing food supplies give us greater cause for giving thanks, yet one person in six worldwide still suffers from chronic hunger and malnutrition.

Two hundred years ago the Continental Congress proclaimed a day of thanks, and asked for deliverance from war. This year, let us observe Thanksgiving in the spirit of peace and sharing, by declaring it a day of Thankful Giving, a day upon which the American people share their plenty with the hungry of other lands.

Now, Therefore, I, Jimmy Carter, President of the United States of America, in accordance with Section 6103 of Title 5 of the United States Code, do proclaim Thursday, the 23rd of November, 1978, as Thanksgiving Day.

I call upon the Governors, Mayors, and all other State and local officials to broaden the observance of Thanksgiving to include the practice of Thankful Giving in their celebration, inviting Americans to share with those abroad who suffer from hunger.

I call upon the American people to make personal donations to religious or secular charities to combat chronic hunger and malnutrition, and to support the concept of Thankful Giving in order that we may one day assure that no individual anywhere will suffer from hunger, and that we may move to a day of universal celebration in a more perfect community within our nation and around the world.

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

JIMMY CARTER