Second in an occasional series from CNN Politics and CNN Money examining the political anthropology of the United States and how demographic and social shifts are changing the political landscape

Birmingham, Alabama (CNN) Nearly 44 years after Hillary Clinton visited this state as a law student, the cruel injustices of its past still lingering, she walked onto the campus of historically black Miles College and delivered a message: I haven't forgotten.

"Among the common barriers we still have to knock down is systemic racism," Clinton told rallygoers on February 27.

Her pitch worked: Three days later, on primary day, Alabama delivered Clinton her second-biggest margin of victory in the 2016 primaries — 78% of the vote. Her biggest margin of victory in a primary was in nearby Mississippi, another state with a large African-American population. She has no chance of winning either state in November.

But if she is to win the White House, she'll need to rely on the same coalition of voters -- many of them minorities -- that put President Barack Obama in office.

In this year, as the first black president is preparing to leave office and when race factors so heavily into the political discussion, much of the conversation around crime and justice, Clinton's Alabama background could be an asset. The New York Times detailed the time in 1972 that then-Hillary Rodham spent in Dothan, a small city in the southeastern corner of the state.

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