Story highlights Clinton said the former first lady, who died on Sunday, "started a national conversation" on AIDS

St. Louis (CNN) Hillary Clinton apologized on Friday for calling the late Nancy Reagan a "very effective, low-key" advocate on AIDS/HIV, saying she "misspoke" in an interview with MSNBC.

Clinton said the former first lady, who died on Sunday, "started a national conversation" on AIDS that "penetrated the public conscience and people began to say, 'Hey, we have to do something about this, too,'" during an interview with the network at Reagan's funeral.

But Nancy Reagan's husband, President Ronald Reagan, didn't deliver a major speech on the epidemic until 1987, six years after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention first reported on the disease . Many in the gay community have criticized Reagan for not doing more to respond to the AIDS outbreak during his presidency.

Chad Griffin, the president of the Human Rights Campaign and a former Clinton White House aide, knocked the Clinton on Friday for incorrectly holding Reagan up as an activist.

He tweeted, "Nancy Reagan was, sadly, no hero in the fight against HIV/AIDS."

Read More