WITH a new opinion poll demonstrating that race is still a divisive issue in the US, President Clinton today launches a year-long initiative for improving race relations.
He will give a speech at the University of California, accompanied by the seven-member panel he has just appointed to advise him on the issue. Mr Clinton is also planning a series of town-hall meetings around the country where he will encourage discussion of racial issues.
He will issue a report in 1998 based on advice from the distinguished panel headed by the 82-year-old black historian, Prof John Hope Franklin. The panel consists of two blacks, three whites, an Hispanic and a Korean American.
"Our hope is that in a year's time we will have ways that both policies and people can help the nation respect each other's differences but at the same time grow together as one," the White House deputy Chief of Staff, Ms Sylvia Matthews, said to reporters.
While Mr Clinton has continued to call for improved race relations during his presidency and gets strong electoral support from the 12 per cent black population, he is sometimes accused by African-American activists of too much rhetoric and not enough action. He is said to be determined to use the report to plan a series of concrete measures to improve race relations during the rest of his second term.
A Gallup poll published this week shows that while some aspects of race relations are improving, there is still a big divergence in the views of blacks and whites in their opinions of how blacks are treated. Some 79 per cent of whites think blacks have as good a chance as whites of getting jobs. But only 46 per cent of blacks believe this is the case.
For the first time since Gallup started asking the question, a majority of whites (61 per cent) approve of black-white marriages. In 1958 the figure was four per cent.
Some 93 per cent of whites now say they would vote for a black president compared with 35 per cent in 1958. But pollsters wonder if the change could be due to people saying what they think is the right thing rather than what they really feel.
Rev Jesse Jackson, who also advises Mr Clinton on race relations, says that the challenge is "to follow up his words with action", but "I don't see how he can do it in the light of the Budget deal he cut" with Republicans in Congress. There is now less funding than the President wanted for welfare and schools in poorer areas.