When?

Sunday, Sept. 16, 2007

Where?

Charleston, South Carolina.

Occasion

91st annual NAACP banquet

http://www.charleston.net/news/2007/sep/ 16/clinton_tells_naacp_civil_rights_plan s16195/

U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton told the biggest annual gathering of Lowcountry civil rights leaders Saturday that she will take five specific steps to help their cause if she wins the presidency next year.

Clinton addressed almost 1,000 people during the Charleston NAACP's 91st annual banquet, and she chose the occasion to unveil her plans for bolstering civil rights.

This was the annual banquet of the NAACP, an event that occurs only once a year.  South Carolina is an important early state, and for a Democratic presidential candidate getting the most influential and important South Carolina civil rights leaders at one gathering seems like a golden opportunity to get one's point across.

Outlined five specific civil rights-bolstering steps

1.  Clinton said if elected, she would direct her attorney general to investigate charges of improper, politically motivated hiring and whether any laws were broken and to increase the Civil Rights Division funding by $30 million.

Her other four steps are:

2. helping school districts pursue voluntary integration measures

3. extending full voting rights to Washington, D.C. citizens and fight voter ID laws that negatively impact minorities

4. strengthening federal hate crimes law

5. fighting race and sex discrimination in the workplace

"We have to have a Justice Department that functions again," she said. "Anyone who says we have gotten beyond racial discrimination is not living with their eyes open."

Clinton's remarks appear right on.  There is a lot of racially motivated hiring discrimination still going on in this country.  Here in Tampa a well-publicized discrimination case showed that the Florida division of Bank of America was denying blacks loans they would routinely give to Whites, even if the black applicants showed higher income, a better credit history, more going for him/her.   I am applauding Clinton's effort for a more colorblind structure when it comes to hiring, loans, etc.

Addressing the NAACP banquet was a political coup for Clinton, whose main rival in South Carolina is U.S. Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois. Black voters are expected to make up about half of those voting in the state's Democratic presidential primary on Jan. 29.

This event was hosted by no other than Rep. and Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-S.C. I wonder if he is going to endorse either Clinton or Obama in the end?

Clinton also said too many Americans feel their problems are not visible to the nation's leaders, whether the problem is access to health care, dilapidated schools or discrepancies in court sentences. She said if you're a Hurricane Katrina victim in New Orleans, "you're invisible to this president even when you're on CNN."