Hillary Clinton drew distinctions between herself and her primary challenger, Bernie Sanders, as she discussed a range of issues impacting African-American communities. | AP Photo Clinton, in Harlem, seeks contrast with Sanders on race

Hillary Clinton on Tuesday delivered a major speech on race, calling it her mission to address issues that disproportionately plague African-American families.

Delivering her remarks in Harlem, Clinton drew distinctions between herself and her primary challenger, Bernie Sanders, as she discussed a range of issues impacting African-American communities.


The Vermont senator so far in his campaign has mainly addressed racism through the lens of economic inequality. “We aren’t a single-issue country,” Clinton said, adding that breaking up the big banks — a staple of Sanders’ campaign — isn’t enough to break down the barriers African-American families face.

Clinton also accused the Republican Party of trying to take away black Americans' fundamental right to vote. “Across our country, Republican governors and legislatures are erecting one barrier after another that make it harder for black people to vote,” she said. “It’s a blast from the Jim Crow past, and we need to call it for what it is.”

Clinton announced a $2 billion proposal to end the so-called “school-to-prison pipeline.” Her proposal calls for “School Climate Support Teams” — a combination of social workers, behavioral health specialists and education practitioners — to be placed in schools with high rates of suspension and in-school arrests. The teams would be charged with spotting early-warning signs in at-risk students and utilizing other techniques to reform school discipline.

“This is not just an education issue,” Clinton said. “This is a civil rights issue, and we cannot ignore it any longer. The bottom line is this: We need to be sending our kids to college. We need a cradle-to-college pipeline, not sending them into court and into prison.”

Clinton rattled off a series of statistics highlighting how African-Americans are disproportionately impacted compared to white Americans, citing incarceration rates and profiling before calling it her mission to correct these inequities and challenging Americans to acknowledge that, despite progress, racism still exists.

The first step, she said, is facing the reality of systemic racism. “These aren’t only problems of economic inequality,” she said. “These are problems of racial inequality. We’ve got to say that loudly and clearly.”

It’s tempting to believe bigotry is largely over in the U.S., Clinton said, because it would mean there’s a lot less work to be done. However, “race still plays a significant role in determining who gets ahead in America and who gets left behind,” she said.

The speech is part of Clinton’s effort in recent days — as she closes in on the South Carolina primary and turns her attention toward more diverse March states — to show that she views racism and discrimination as stand-alone problems in America in need of their own solutions.

Her speech follows a closed-door meeting she held with the Rev. Al Sharpton, National Urban League President Marc Morial and NAACP President Cornell Brooks. “It’s absolutely critical to me that we look at the full array of issues that do stand in the way” of progress for African-American families, she told the civil rights leaders. “We have work to do.”

Clinton’s first major policy speech of her campaign last spring — delivered after the death of Freddie Gray in police custody — was about ending the era of mass incarceration. But her latest remarks on the topic come as the wounded Democratic front-runner puts a renewed focus on race as the primary moves into more diverse states like Nevada and South Carolina.

In recent days, she has campaigned with Congressman John Lewis, a civil rights hero, and rolled out endorsements from African-American religious leaders in Flint, Michigan, who lauded her for visiting the city in crisis and bringing national attention to the plight of its largely African-American community.