Will tackle racism, Hillary says, eyeing Afro-American votes

Hillary Clinton is seeking to maintain her lead among black voters over US Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, her rival for the Democratic nomination for the November 8 election to succeed Democrat Barack Obama, the first black US president. The Clinton campaign said last week: “It will be very difficult, if not impossible, for a Democrat to win the nomination without strong levels of support among African-American and Hispanic voters.” 

Clinton met for more than two hours on Tuesday with a half-dozen civil rights leaders at the New York headquarters of the National Urban League. The Rev. Al Sharpton joked with Clinton in the corridors afterward, suggesting to reporters he had told her which candidate he would endorse. “My lips are sealed!” Clinton, who did not take any media questions, replied with a smile. 

At a news conference later, Sharpton said Clinton was “candid and open,” but he added he had yet to decide who to support and that no candidate should take the support of black voters for granted. “We are not a monolithic people,” he said. Opinion polls show Clinton with a strong lead over Sanders in South Carolina, where blacks are likely to make up more than half the voters in the state’s Democratic primary on February 27. 

Later on Tuesday, Clinton spoke in the historically black New York City neighbourhood of Harlem on breaking down the barriers that black families face. “There are still very real barriers holding back African-Americans from fully participating in our economy and our society,” Clinton said, citing disparities between blacks and whites in earnings, health and criminal sentencing. 

She said that if elected, she would spend 2 billion dollars to encourage public school districts with a high number of troubled students to hire social workers and other experts to help young people before they get entangled in the criminal justice system.