Forty years ago this week, 80 people took a stand and changed the world.

In the third week of February in the year 1956, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King and 78 other dedicated souls walked in to the county courthouse in Montgomery, Alabama and gave themselves up for arrest.

Their offense? They were boycotting Montgomery's buses, because the city forced African-Americans to sit in the back.

That day -- well before CNN or the World Wide Web brought us instant information -- news of this dramatic encounter flashed around the world. From Nova Scotia to Nairobi, people read about the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and saw the faces of an earnest woman named Rosa and a 26-year-old man named Martin. And the world learned something about our country that day: in America, a single quiet act of conscience can topple the even the mightiest walls of ignorance, intolerance, and indifference.

Today -- in this third week of February in the year 1996 -- we honor the memory of Montgomery. We do so with our words, of course. But we also pay our respects in the more valuable coin of our action.

This morning, I am thrilled to announce that by the end of this year, we will connect every school in every Empowerment Zone in the United States to the information superhighway. With this historic initiative, we're moving civil rights into cyberspace. Forty years after Montgomery, we are stamping the values of Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King onto the age of Netscape Navigator and Windows 95.

This is an extraordinary initiative. It means that every child in every one of the 15 urban and rural Empowerment Zones will be able to connect to the Internet -- and that students and teachers in these neighborhoods will be able to connect to each other . . . and eventually to the rest of the planet.

Our goal is to infuse modern meaning into the civil rights movement's timeless legacy. And we're applying the lessons of the Information Age to our push for change in neighborhoods and communities.

There's a principle well-known to computer scientists that's called Metcalfe's Law. It's named after Robert Metcalfe, one of the Internet's founders -- and it says the following: the power of a computer network increases at roughly the square of the number of people connected to it.

That's why the Internet is growing so fast. The more people who connect, the more other people there are who want to connect. If you double the number of people on line, you quadruple the number of possible ways to link people and combine their talent and ideas.

That's precisely what happened in Montgomery. Rosa Parks refused to go to the back of the bus, and that inspired a few other people to take a stand. Still others saw those early movers, and they decided to join their network of conscience. And as the network grew, even more people were inspired -- and before long emerged a network of activists and preachers and politicians and ordinary people whose collective might moved the world.

What those pioneers did in Alabama, together we can do in cyberspace.

I'm proud that the private sector has stepped forward to help meet this challenge.

America Online, the nation's largest commercial online service, will provide free AOL access to every school in every Empowerment Zone. Students who use this service will be able to plug in to America Online's own offerings and will have full access to the Internet and World Wide Web.

In addition, AT&T will make available to every school in every Empowerment Zone free dial-up access to the Internet -- plus free Web browser software. AT&T will also offer free technical support for teachers so they can help their students learn to learn through these exciting new technologies.

Instead of public values and private actions doing battle as they did 40 years ago in Montgomery, today they are joining hands -- working together in a private-public partnership that demonstrates what we can achieve when we all work together.

And this effort could not come at a better time. In the past four years, e-mail, Net surfing, and home pages has exploded into our national life. Every day brings another story of a start-up company earning millions of dollars or another T-shirt-to-riches tale of a young techno-whiz.

But as the country connects, we risk leaving behind vast portions of our population. These new communications and computing technologies have astonishing power; they can truly revolutionize how -- and how much -- our children learn. But they don't do any good for children who spend their days in a school without a computer and their nights in a home without a phone line.

And make no mistake: there is a digital divide in this country. For example, about seven million homes in America -- many of them in Empowerment Zones and Enterprise Communities -- don't have basic telephone service. Talking about an information superhighway to Americans who barely have an information dirt road is a cruel joke.

More and more families are buying computers to use at home, and that's great. But most of those families are headed by parents with college degrees who live in suburbs with leafy trees.

The pattern holds in our nation's classrooms. According to a study released last week by the Education Department, half the schools in America are connected to the Internet. But minority students and low-income students are significantly less likely to attend schools with avenues to the information superhighway. Among schools with large numbers of low-income students, just 31 percent have Internet access -- half the rate of schools with wealthier children.

But today, we're beginning to close the digital divide. Today, we're letting the world know that this country will not tolerate information apartheid -- two technological communities, separate and unequal.

With this historic undertaking, we're supplying the tools to help the information have-nots build themselves a better future -- tools like the ones some young people will use in a moment to connect to NASA Mission Control in Houston.

We're also doing other things to help stock that tool kit. The historic telecommunications legislation President Clinton signed earlier this month requires companies that benefit from deregulation to provide affordable access to schools and libraries at a discounted rate.

The Department of Education's Education Technology Assistance Centers will help five Empowerment Zones train teachers, acquire computers, and leverage assistance from private industry.

And next month, President Clinton will sign an Executive Order that helps direct the federal government's surplus computers and computer equipment to the nation's Empowerment Zones and Enterprise Communities. With this simple action and the Education Technology Challenge Fund announced last week, millions of dollars of software and hardware may reach the neighborhoods that need them most.

Our education technology strategy rests on four pillars: modern computers for all schools and classrooms, educational software as engaging as a video game, teacher training in the latest technologies, and connecting every school and classroom to the information highway.

And we must act on this strategy . . . act on it now. Because the steepest barrier facing families in Empowerment Zones and Enterprise Communities face may not be crime gone out of control or streets in disrepair or jobs that have evaporated.

The steepest barrier could be the unspeakable sense of isolation these Americans must contend with every day of their lives.

These Americans are isolated from the economy. Mothers often must walk dozens of city blocks just to reach a grocery store, because the infrastructure of legitimate commerce is virtually nonexistent.

These Americans are isolated from jobs -- and disconnected from the networks most people in this room rely on to advance their careers. In communities where few people hold jobs, such informal networks of information, advice, and opportunity cannot emerge -- and so the cycle of joblessness swirls ever downward.

These Americans are isolated from transportation. In many places, subways and the buses don't run all the way to these neighborhoods, which means those who have jobs face exhausting commutes to far away locales.

And these Americans are isolated from even their own surroundings -- often penned inside their homes because their streets are too dangerous, because simply taking a walk or playing catch can cost them their lives.

For these isolated Americans, our most urgent task is to reconnect them to America's promise. We must build the bridges that will allow them to cross to a brighter future.

We should make sure that every child in this country -- no matter where she lives or how much money her family has -- can tap into the Internet's web of information. We must build these bridges.

We should make sure that every school in this country -- no matter where it is located or how many of its students need subsidized lunches -- bubbles with learning and clatters with sound of children tapping keyboards. We must build these bridges.

We should make sure that every child in this country -- no matter what his father's income or his mother's job -- gets the tools and the chance to earn a decent living in an Information Age economy. We must build these bridges.

And we should make sure every school in this country -- whether it's located in the toughest barrio or the poshest neighborhood -- provides its students the best teachers, the best technologies, and the best education possible. My friends, we must build these bridges.

At the dawn of a new century, many Americans look to the future with confidence. And they should. But many other Americans, when they squint their eyes, see either nothing at all or a future as bleak as their present.

That's why when you -- the people on the front lines, the people making a difference in the neighborhoods, the people doing the heavy lifting -- look to the future, you cannot forget to peek at the rear view mirror and glimpse the past.

Because as Dr. King reminded us, "Through our scientific genius we have made of this world a neighborhood; now through our moral and spiritual development we must make of it a brotherhood."

So on this day when scientific genius helps move us further into a new age, let us remember the heroes of Montgomery who, 40 years ago, helped fortify the American brotherhood.

Inspired by their example, humbled by their achievements, ennobled by their success, we stand on their shoulders. And from that lofty perch, together we can view a brighter future -- a future in which all our children have a chance, a future in which all our schools do their best, a future in which all Americans, working together, live out the true meaning of our national pledge, "one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

Thank you very much. And now let's visit cyberspace.