Proclamation 4784—National Employ the Handicapped Week, 1980

Our Nation is moving strongly toward greater equality for people with physical and mental disabilities. The United Nations has designated next year as the International Year of Disabled Persons. As President, I not only reaffirm this country's commitment to equality for handicapped individuals, I intend to make every effort to see that the coming decade is one in which their aspirations are fulfilled.

We must do all we can to give the handicapped maximum independence, full access to our society, and the opportunity to develop and use their talents and skills. This must be done case by case, event by event, and program by program. Working together, we can make certain that disabled people at last enter completely into the mainstream of our great society.

To affirm our commitment to independence for handicapped individuals, the Congress, by joint resolution of August 11, 1945, as amended (36 U.S.C. 155), has called for the designation of the first full week in October each year as National Employ the Handicapped Week.

Now, Therefore, I, Jimmy Carter, President of the United States of America, do hereby designate the week beginning October 5, 1980, as National Employ the Handicapped Week. I urge all Governors, Mayors, other public officials, leaders in business and labor, and private citizens at all levels of responsibility to help remove the barriers to equal opportunity for handicapped individuals and to help them in their search for productive employment.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-sixth day of August, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and eighty, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and fifth.

JIMMY CARTER