Five women who’ve lost a child to gun violence or in encounters with police appeared with Clinton Sunday in North Carolina and visited battleground states

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

As Hillary Clinton took the stage at a black church in Durham, the congregation rose. Their enthusiasm was not reserved for the Democratic presidential nominee. It was also for the five women who stood beside her.



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They call themselves the “Mothers of the Movement” and they are bound by the grief of losing a child to gun violence or in encounters with police. In a time of heightened racial tension, they are dedicated to social justice. They are also committed to electing Clinton.

Five mothers – Sybrina Fulton, Gwen Carr, Lucia McBath, Geneva Reed-Veal and Maria Hamilton – appeared with Clinton on Sunday, at the Union Baptist Church in Durham and then at an event in Raleigh. Seeking to galvanize the African American vote, they have visited battleground states, imploring those concerned with criminal justice reform to turn advocacy into action.

“You have no business staying home in this election,” said Reed-Veal, whose daughter Sandra Bland was found hanged in a jail cell, three days after she was arrested by a Texas state trooper during a traffic stop.

“If you decide to stay home, shut your mouth. Do not complain about anything that’s going on, do not talk about your neighborhood, do not talk about your neighbor, do not talk about what’s not going on.”

Had such words come from the candidate, some might have taken offense. They were met with applause and scattered cries of “Amen.”

The mothers, who Clinton called “extraordinary women”, are driven by memories of children who live on in the Black Lives Matter movement.

If you stay home, shut your mouth. Do not complain about anything going on … do not talk about what's not going on Geneva Reed-Veal

Hamilton’s son, Dontre, was 31. He was shot 14 times by a white Milwaukee police officer who frisked him while he was asleep on a park bench. The death of Carr’s son, Eric Garner, prompted nationwide protests after a video showed the father of six kept in a chokehold by police officers in New York City, even as he repeatedly told them: “I can’t breathe.”

The other mothers’ sons were not killed by law enforcement officers. But the shootings may have been racially motivated.

Fulton’s son, Trayvon Martin, was shot and killed after an altercation with a self-appointed neighborhood watch volunteer, George Zimmerman. Martin, 17, was unarmed. McBath’s son, Jordan Davis, was also 17. He was shot at a gas station in 2012, the same year as Martin, in a dispute over loud music.

Clinton met the mothers last fall in Chicago, a city plagued by gun violence. They turned out for her in the Democratic primary and spoke at the convention, and they are now working the swing states that will determine the election on 8 November. They have appeared in North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Florida.

“They’ve all given me a lot of strength and encouragement. And they said things that I have carried in my heart,” Clinton told churchgoers on Sunday. “Their hearts may be broken, but their souls are shining.”

‘There’s power in the black vote’

Carr said she first avoided Clinton’s staff, but was impressed by her conversation with Clinton when they met last November. Speaking in a church basement in north Philadelphia last month, she said: “There’s power in the black vote.”

Clinton holds a formidable lead over Donald Trump among black voters, who turned out in record numbers for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012.

The president and his wife have targeted the same constituency. On Sunday, Clinton’s campaign announced that she would return to North Carolina on Thursday with Michelle Obama – their first joint appearance. Last month, Barack Obama said he would take it as a “personal insult” if black voters did not turn out for Clinton.

When Clinton launched her campaign in April 2015, economic issues underpinned her message. But as killings of unarmed African Americans by police and subsequent protests kept race in the national conversation, criminal justice reform became an inescapable election issue.

Clinton made it the focus of her first public speech. Calling for an end to mass incarceration, she unveiled reform proposals that now include lowering mandatory minimums for non-violent drug offenders, requiring body cameras for police, and reducing recidivism by pushing employers to remove questions over a job applicant’s criminal history.

“If we’re honest with each other,” she said on Sunday, “we know we face the continuing challenge of systemic racism.”

Trump has addressed race and policing with his trademark hyperbole. In what his campaign calls outreach, the Republican nominee has painted a dire portrait of many African American lives.

“You’re living in poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs, 58% of your youth is unemployed,” Trump has said. “What the hell have you got to lose?”

While he has acknowledged being troubled by videos showing black men fatally shot by police, Trump’s response has been to declare himself “the law and order candidate” – borrowing a phrase from Richard Nixon’s 1968 campaign.

Trump also suggested implementing nationwide stop-and-frisk, a statement he attempted to walk back but which nonetheless supported a New York City policy that was deemed unconstitutional, for racially profiling African Americans and Hispanics.

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On Sunday, Clinton told churchgoers her opponent failed to see “the vibrancy” of black communities, from business owners to historically black colleges and universities and “the passion of a new generation of young black activists”.

“They paint a bleak picture of inner cities and the African American community,” Clinton said, saying Trump and Republicans were “fanning the flames of resentment and division”.

Those in the pews murmured and nodded in agreement. To the mothers, it was not enough to simply share Clinton’s view.

“We’re here because we need you all to get in action,” Hamilton said. “We’re here to ask North Carolina, ‘Let’s go blue.’”

When she took the podium, Reed-Veal pointed at Clinton.

“On 9 November,” she said, “there will be a new sheriff in town.”