In Chicago speech, Clinton hails black women voters for leading ‘hope and resilience’ during Trump era – By Rick Pearson (chicagotribune.com) / April 12 2018
Former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton delivered an homage to African-American women in Chicago on Thursday, saying they are leading “hope and resilience” following a “devastating election” that she lost to Republican Donald Trump.
The former secretary of state and U.S. senator also endorsed longtime supporter J.B. Pritzker’s candidacy against Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner. Clinton said Pritzker and running mate state Rep. Juliana Stratton, a black woman, “are deeply committed to fighting for equality and opportunity in every corner of this state.”
Clinton made the remarks before several hundred people at a downtown hotel ballroom as the keynote speaker for a fundraising luncheon for the Ida B. Wells Legacy Committee, a new political fund aimed at promoting African-American women candidates.
The political action committee was founded by Delmarie Cobb, a political consultant and public relations strategist who, like Pritzker, backed Clinton over Barack Obama for president in 2008. Pritzker also was a sponsor of Thursday’s event.
Clinton did not directly use Trump’s name during her address. But she did note “the devastating election of 2016 which, you know, I’m still trying to figure out — I mean, to be honest with you.”
“We are living in challenging times. We’re living through a war on truth, facts and reason — watching as racists’ and white supremacists’ views are lifted up in the media and in the White House,” she said. “But despite it all, there are signs of hope and resilience, and much of that is being led and shaped by black women.”
She touted the December election of Doug Jones, the first Democrat elected to the U.S. Senate from Alabama in 25 years, as a symbol of the political power of African-American women voters.
But in what might have been a reference to her 2016 presidential campaign, Clinton said politicians need to do more than just “thank” black women by also supporting them.
“We need to do a better job of giving people something to vote for so that we can keep moving our country in the direction it should go,” she said of politicians, adding that she often heard from voters on the campaign trail that their votes didn’t matter.
Clinton, a Chicago native who was raised in suburban Park Ridge, defeated Trump by 17 percentage points in Illinois. She contended Wisconsin’s requirement of a photo ID to cast a ballot amounted to “voter suppression” and may have cost her that state’s 10 Electoral College votes after losing to Trump there by about 27,000 votes.
“The guess is, you know, at least 100,000, maybe more, people were turned away,” she said.
Clinton credited African-American women voters for turning out for elections “despite deliberate and concerted voter suppression efforts intended to make it all but impossible for people of color, students and the elderly to cast their ballot.”
“It makes me sick to read about voter suppression and how it’s still perverting our democracy,” she said.
