From the White House:
As part of President Obama’s commitment to protect our Nation’s unique outdoor spaces and ensure that every American has the opportunity to visit and enjoy them, today he will launch an “Every Kid in a Park” initiative that will provide all fourth grade students and their families with free admission to National Parks and other federal lands and waters for a full year. He will also announce the creation of three new National Monuments across the country.
The President will make the announcements near the site of the historic Pullman town in Chicago, a location iconic for its history of labor unrest and civil rights advances, which will be the City’s first National Park Service (NPS) unit. He also will announce that he will designate Honouliuli National Monument in Hawaii, the site of an internment camp where Japanese American citizens, resident immigrants, and prisoners of war were held captive during World War II, and Browns Canyon National Monument in Colorado, an historic site of extraordinary beauty with world-class recreational opportunities that attract visitors from around the globe. Together, these monuments will help tell the story of significant events in American history and protect unique natural resources for the benefit of all Americans.
PRESIDENT OBAMA (from Chicago): It’s always been a dream of mine to be the first President to designate a national monument in subzero conditions. […]
For a century, rangers, and interpreters, and volunteers and visitors have kept alive what the writer Wallace Stegner once called “the best idea we ever had” — our belief that the country’s most special places should belong not just to the rich, not just to the powerful, but belong to everybody — not just now, but for all time. […]
… starting this fall, we’re going to help a new generation of Americans experience our God-given grandeur by giving every fourth-grader in America what we’re calling an “Every Kid in a Park” pass — a pass good for free admission to all public lands, for you and your family, for an entire year. We want every fourth-grader to have the experience of getting out and discovering America.
On the significance of Pullman and the porter strike:
And 12 years to the day after A. Philip Randolph spoke in that hall in Harlem [founding the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters], they won, and Pullman became the first large company in America to recognize a union of black workers. […]
[It] was A. Philip Randolph who was the first to speak at that March on Washington. “We are the advanced guard,” he said, “of a massive, moral revolution for jobs and freedom.”
“A massive, moral revolution for jobs and freedom.” And that’s not just the story of a movement, that’s the story of America. Because as Americans, we believe that workers’ rights are civil rights. That dignity and opportunity aren’t just gifts to be handed down by a generous government or by a generous employer; they are rights given by God, as undeniable and worth protecting as the Grand Canyon or the Great Smoky Mountains. …
… throughout our history, we’ve marched not only for jobs, but also for justice; not just for the absence of oppression, but for the presence of opportunity. And ultimately, that wasn’t just for African Americans any more than the original Pullman union was just for white workers. Eventually, that principle would be embraced on behalf of women, and Latinos, and Native Americans; for Catholics and Jews and Muslims; for LGBT Americans; for Americans with mental and physical disabilities.