Not even the South Carolina NAACP Martin Luther King Day event could unify Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, as the two continued their debate from Sunday night.
“We are all diminished by racism and bigotry and injustice, no matter who we are, whether we know it or not,” Clinton led off, while on stage on the steps of the South Carolina State House on Monday. “So yes, America has surely made progress but today we should pay tribute to people who helped bring us to this point and be challenged to continue their work.”
The former secretary of state went on to praise South Carolina’s Republican Gov. Nikki Haley for removing the Confederate flag from over the State House just months ago, before launching into a litany describing her civil rights platform.
Clinton said that African Americans are still struggling for equality in the state. She focused on the issue of gun violence and the unfair treatment of blacks in the criminal justice system, especially the disproportionate number of African-American men who end up in jail.
On the campaign trail, Clinton and Sanders both have spoken of the importance of racial equality and criminal justice reform. Sunday night’s debate, co-hosted by the Congressional Black Caucus, also focused largely on civil rights.
While the two candidates largely agree on issues of race, Clinton believes that Sanders’ gun control policies do not go far enough to help endangered communities.
“This isn’t just a law enforcement issue, it’s a civil rights issue,” Clinton said of gun control, standing just a few feet away from Sanders, who would soon take the stage to discuss his commitment to civil rights.
Sanders’ used his speech not only to praise King and explain his own racial equality platform, but also to attempt to prove to voters that if the civil rights leader were alive today, he would support the Vermont socialist.
To commemorate Martin Luther King Day, the Sanders’ campaign tweeted out a quote that sounded very similar to Sanders’ stump speech: “This country has socialism for the rich, rugged individualism for the poor.”
Martin Luther King Jr: “This country has socialism for the rich, rugged individualism for the poor.”#MLKDay
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) January 18, 2016
While Sanders’ pledged to further MLK’s vision, he also highlighted King’s work to end poverty, highlighting his own campaign’s commitment to the issue.
“What he was talking about was a poor people’s campaign,” Sanders said of King’s work to restore equality in the country, reiterating a line Sanders’ often uses to describe his own political campaign. He added, “I wonder what Doctor King would say to see a nation where the top tenth of the top 1 percent owns more wealth than the bottom 90 percent?”
Sanders made no mention of gun violence in his speech, whereas Clinton focused almost entirely of the issue.
Among South Carolina Democratic voters, Clinton holds the clear lead, with 66 percent of the vote, whereas Sanders trails with 26 percent and O’Malley lags behind with 2.5 percent. Clinton lost the 2008 South Carolina Democratic primary to Barack Obama largely because she did poorly with African-American voters.
