Denmark, S.C. -- Hillary Clinton told more 500 supporters packed into a elementary school gymnasium built in the Truman administration that she will fight to continue Barack Obama's legacy and said her rival Bernie Sanders is promising things he can't deliver.
It was no surprise that Clinton's first stop in this state since her defeat in the New Hampshire primary is one of the state's heavily African-American rural crossroads.
This tiny town in Bamberg County, near Orangeburg, is part of the state's "Corridor of Shame," a geographic strip that roughly follows the path Interstate 95 cuts through the state from North Carolina to Florida. It has spawned documentaries and a state Supreme Court ruling ordering the General Assembly to act.
Overwhelmingly black and overwhelmingly poor, the Corridor is known for its poor educational opportunities and crumbling schools. Liberal and conservatives here have tried for years to change that but Clinton on Friday spoke at an elementary school here that was built in the 1950s, where crumbling buildings pock the campus.
"Here in South Carolina, if you look at life through the eyes of a child, in a lot of small towns and rural areas here, you will see crumbling schools, decrepit conditions," Clinton said. It is "against what we as Americans stand for."
Clinton said she wants to turn the area into the Corridor of Opportunity and proposed a $125 billion program to revitalize poor rural areas in America.
Her campaign said that would include $50 billion investment for job development, including 20 billion specifically invested in local programs to help young, unemployed Americans find work.
Clinton's appearance to more than 300 Democrats here is one of many salvos the former secretary of state is making to shore up her support among African-American voters, who are expected to make up more than half of all ballots cast in the Feb. 27 primary.
Another also landed Friday as the campaign unveiled a new television ad that features the Rev. Anthony Thompson of Charleston, whose wife was killed at Emanuel AME Church last year in the so-called "Charleston Massacre."
Clinton also emphasized her work in this part of the state in the early 1970s as part of the Children's Defense Fund. She said she helped investigate how juveniles were placed in adult jails in the state.
Finally, the visit comes a day after civil rights legend John Lewis, the Georgia congressman, said he never saw or met Bernie Sanders during the civil rights movement of the 1960s.
These are all key pitches for Clinton, whose campaign has long said the South, with its diverse electorate, would be her firewall after a narrow win in Iowa and her lopsided loss in New Hampshire. Both states are overwhelmingly white.
Sanders, meanwhile, has yet to schedule a visit to South Carolina, instead choosing to focus first on Nevada, where Democrats caucus Feb. 20.
Bakari Sellers would fall comfortably into many of the demographics that Sanders' campaign attracts. He's young, liberal, educated. He's also black and he's backing Clinton. "I used to break into this gymnasium to play basketball," Sellers, a former state lawmaker, 31, said. He still lives less than two miles away from the school.
People here and elsewhere along the Corridor need "concrete and real solutions," Sellers said, not outlandish promises Sanders could never keep. "We don't have time for unicorns," he said.
Clinton said much the same. "I will not make promises I know I can’t keep," she said. "We don’t need any more of that. What we need is a determination and a commitment to follow through. I’ll build on the progress of President Barack Obama."
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