(CNN) Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg said that tackling racial inequality is a "matter of national survival" during a speech before an audience of black business leaders in Chicago on Tuesday.

Buttigieg's comments at a breakfast meeting of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition come as the South Bend, Indiana, mayor struggles to win over black support during the Democratic presidential primary. The mayor, despite being among the top five candidates in the polls and raising over $30 million so far in 2019, has seen little growth in support from black voters, as evidenced by the fact that 0% of national black voters said they supported him in a CNN poll released Monday.

"If we do not tackle the problem of racial inequality in my lifetime, I am convinced that it will upend the American project in my lifetime," Buttigieg said at an event hosted by Rev. Jesse Jackson, a civil rights leader and former presidential candidate who founded the coalition. "It brought our country to its knees once and if we do not act, it could again."

He added: "I believe this is not only a matter of justice, but a matter of national survival."

Buttigieg has repeatedly said that his struggles with black voters are partly because he is unknown in the black community after leading a small city of just over 100,000 people for eight years.

Read More