Former President Bill Clinton praised the Black Lives Matter movement while stumping for his wife’s presidential campaign in New Hampshire on Monday.
He returned to the campaign trail on behalf of Hillary Clinton in the Granite State with under a month to go until the first ballots are cast in the first Democratic nominating contest.
The Black Lives Matter movement is built upon the premise that black lives have not mattered to the same extent that others have in the United States’ history so that emphasis must be placed on the value of black lives now. The movement has participated in protests Ferguson, Mo., and Baltimore, Md., during which rioting and the destruction of property took place.
“I like all those young people in Black Lives Matter,” Clinton told the New Hampshire crowd. “I think what they’re saying is important.”
“To have broad-based prosperity, you have to have inclusive economics and more equal opportunities for people to take advantage of. And to make it work, you have to have inclusive societies where we relish our differences but where when the chips are down our common humanity matters more,” Clinton added.
“So when there is discrimination against African-Americans or Hispanics or Muslims just because of who they are, I don’t like that. But we never can forget that what we have to do is unite the police and the community. Unite business and labor. Unite this country. That’s when things happen, when you have inclusive economics and inclusive societies.”
Clinton argued that “the big job of the next president” is to foster inclusive economics, inclusive societies and inclusive politics. He later mentioned the need to defend America’s national security in a way that “preserves our values.”
As the former president took the microphone in New Hampshire, Hillary Clinton campaigned in Iowa.
