Bill Clinton talks of racial progress
Posted: Friday, April 04, 2008 10:51 AM by Domenico Montanaro
From NBC/NJ’s Carrie Dann
PEMBROKE, NC -- Recognizing the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination today, former President Bill
Clinton said that -- more so than the civil rights leader's vision for racial equality -- it is King's dream of equal economic opportunity that remains unfulfilled.
"We've made a lot of progress on the first front" of bridging racial divides, he told a crowd at the University of North Carolina's Pembroke campus this morning. Noting the historic candidacies of both his wife and her opponent, he added, "We now are at a place where people can be judged, in his words, by the content of their character and not the color of their skin."
"We're making progress on that," he said as the audience cheered its approval. "We're doing
well."
The former president went on to say that King's hope of eliminating poverty, exemplified by the "Poor People's March" in Washington after King's death, is an objective on which "we're not doing nearly as well."
"We're not doing as well on the second front," he said of the economic inequalities faced by the American people. "And that's what this presidential election is about," he added. “We're not doing nearly as well on dealing with equal economic opportunity, and creating a country of shared opportunities, shared responsibilities, and shared prosperities."
A statement issued by the Clinton Foundation this morning echoed the former president's sentiment. "America has made great strides towards Dr. King's dream of a nation where we can all be judged not by the color of our skin, but the content of our character," it reads. "But the poverty, inequality, and violence we deplored persists, making his last mission as urgent today as it was 40 years ago. We can honor him best by embracing, and living, his dream."
