KINGSTREE, S.C. – The first thing an outsider notices when entering Williamsburg County in the South Carolina low country are the signs pointing the way to salvation.

Plastered on the siding of the Hydrick's Service Center leading into town are letters reading "Jesus Saves." The same message is found outside a wastewater treatment plant and dotting neighborhood yards like real estate signs: "Only One Way To Heaven ... Jesus."

Williamsburg is one of South Carolina's poorest counties. Battered by crippling losses in the manufacturing and textile industries during the recession of the early 2000s, nearly a third of its residents now sit below the poverty level. The median household income is just over $25,000. Its population is 65 percent black.

Yet even on a dingy symbol of the area's decay and impoverishment – the abandoned Fair Deal Warehouse – there is a glimmer of hope for redemption.

"Escape Judgement, Turn To Jesus ... Be Saved!" it blares on the side of the vacant, neglected facility.



Just next door over a wire fence sits the the county's recreational center. And inside its gymnasium, Hillary Clinton is encircled by an almost entirely African-American audience, in search of her own type of redemption.

"This is the first step," she tells the assembly, "to move towards the nomination."

Eight years ago, when Clinton was trounced by candidate Barack Obama in the South Carolina Democratic presidential primary, her loss in Williamsburg County was particularly staggering and matched by the results in only one other county: Obama crushed her 74 percent to 17 percent.

So her presence here two days before the Palmetto State's Democratic primary is both symbolic and strategic. Whereas black voters sunk her White House ambitions by gravitating to a charismatic African-American out of a sense of history and pride, most are now intent on propelling her forward with a significant victory that would bolster her standing as the party's resounding front-runner.

Clinton leads Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders by 28 points in South Carolina, according to a recent NBC/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll. But her advantage among African-Americans, who are estimated to comprise around 55 percent of Saturday's Democratic primary electorate, is almost double that at 47 points.

Nationally, surveys show Clinton's margin among African-Americans is nearly as gaping, reaching upward of 40 points. That chasm will become more crucial in the coming weeks, as the campaign calendar turns into March.

South Carolina will usher in a wave of contests in primary states that have significant black voting blocs, including delegate-rich prizes like Virginia and Texas. And at a time when she's struggling to inspire younger voters, African-Americans remain Clinton's most stalwart constituency.

In the well of the gymnasium, Ronnie Sabb, a state senator and local attorney in Kingstree, is giving Clinton an introduction that could easily be mistaken for a Southern Methodist sermon.

With every phrase of praise for Clinton, he pauses his cadence to allow the audience to call back at him, creating a kinetic rhythm seldom found among white crowds.

Clinton adapts to the moment, mimicking Sabb's rhetorical pacing and even inserting a slight Southern twang into her dialect.



"I have to say, you've got a senator preacher here," she says to claps and cheers. "I'll tell you what / I can just see him / down there in the Senate / casting out / all those demons."

She continues, creating her own gospel hymn, eliciting peppy line-by-line responses just like Sabb:

"I'll tell you, we could just turn this into a revival.

I bet there's some gooood singin' that could be done here.

In fact, I think we need more singing, don't you?

I sing because I'm happy, I sing because I'm freeee."

Clinton then spends more than an hour sifting through her hefty policy agenda, but with a keen focus on her audience at hand. She notes African-American women, which dominate the crowd seated before her, make up the fastest-growing group of small business owners. She deplores the physical deterioration and mold she's witnessed at area schools, promising to turn what's known as South Carolina's Corridor of Shame into a "corridor of opportunity." She mentions her work for Marian Wright Edelman, founder of the Children's Defense Fund, who is from Bennettsville, South Carolina.



She pays homage to President Obama's achievements like the Affordable Care Act, while sympathizing with him over the economic outlook he inherited.

When she says, "I don't think President Obama gets the credit he deserves," the applause is so deafening and so quick, the rest of her remark is inaudible.

The concerns shared at the rally typify the economic hardship that's ravaged the county: mounting college debt, struggling farmers, the recent closure of a regional hospital.

"We don't have any industry. Most people have to leave Kingstree to get a job," says Felicia Hampton, a widow with three children in college. "If I want to go to the movies, I have to travel 36 miles. Now we need a hospital. If I get sick right now, I have to travel 36 miles to go to the doctor."

Hampton, who was displaced from her home in October due to historic flooding, sees Clinton as "our best chance." "If Obama trusted Hillary," she says. "It's OK for me to trust Hillary."

Clinton's campaign here has been almost entirely tailored to motivate African-American voters like Hampton on her behalf.

There are the two television ads narrated by actor Morgan Freeman, who tells of Clinton's solidarity with the families of high-profile shooting victims and reminds of her early work to reform juvenile justice in South Carolina.

There's her relentless focus on closing the so-called Charleston loophole that allowed the perpetrator who fatally shot nine people during a prayer service at Emanuel AME Church to buy a firearm even though he had a prior criminal record.

"That's a loophole that my opponent voted for, where you haven't finished the background check in three days, and if you don't finish it – too bad, you still have to sell the gun," she said.

In addition to her stop in Kingstree, the closing days of Clinton's South Carolina campaign tour included three stops at black churches – with New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker accompanying her during one – and a luncheon with Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., the country's oldest black sorority.

On Thursday night, she appeared at a concert being held by R&B performer Charlie Wilson in downtown Charleston. As Wilson sang "Hillary, Hillary" over jazz and funk beats, Clinton smiled and shuffled her feet onstage before adoring fans.

Sanders has worked to cut into her inherent advantage with African-Americans. Last month, he converted to his side state Rep. Justin Bamberg, the lawyer for the family of Walter Scott, who was fatally shot by a police officer in North Charleston.

Attracted to his message of economic inequality and corporate unfairness, director Spike Lee also cut a radio ad for Sanders, vouching for him as an early fighter for civil rights. "He will do the right thing," Lee says in the spot. "How can we be sure? Bernie was at the March on Washington with Dr. King. He was arrested in Chicago for protesting segregation in public schools."

Actor Danny Glover led a canvassing launch at Sanders' office in Charleston on Monday.

But in a sign he's already looking past South Carolina, Sanders spent most of the final pre-primary week outside the Palmetto State, using the bulk of Wednesday through Friday for a tour of Midwestern states that vote in March. Rather than pretending a victory is in the cards, the Sanders team has said its ability to close Clinton's generous lead would be their measure of success.



The first woman who rose to ask a question in Kingstree told the former first lady, "I've followed you a lot since your husband has been the president." It's a common refrain in these parts, and fond recollections of former President Bill Clinton only augment admiration for his wife.

"People looked upon him as almost as a big brother to this area," says Jesse Parker, the African-American mayor of Greeleyville, South Carolina, a 15-minute drive from Kingstree in Williamsburg County. "Things got better."

After members of the Ku Klux Klan burned down the historically black Mount Zion AME Church in Greeleyville, Bill Clinton spoke at the dedication of the rebuilt house of worship in 1996, urging onlookers to work together to beat back "patterns of hatred and division, which can so easily consume any civilized people."

Parker credits the Clinton administration's involvement for the church's rapid reconstruction, a gesture that has not been forgotten by residents 20 years later. And when Parker spoke with the former president at a campaign event in Columbia earlier this month, he mentioned the church had tragically burned down again, due to lightning.

"He asked if it had insurance; I didn't know. He asked I get back in touch with him to further discuss that," Parker recalls.

Parker has no problem with Sanders – he just doesn't know him beyond what he sees in the media.

"Too many people here don't know Bernie. They see commercials on TV now. Other than that, they don't know Bernie. The Clintons are almost like a household name in this area for years. I call him Bill," Parker says. "She was in the fight all her life for issues dealing with black and low-to-moderate-income folk, and we've got a lot of those in this area. I think she's a fit for this area."

Simply showing up is a big part of success in politics, and the Clintons have made it their hallmark for decades. Parker predicts Clinton will win by the margin she lost by in this county last time.

Back inside the recreational center, Jeanie Brown-Burrows, an African-American county councilwoman, could barely contain her excitement in warming up the crowd: Hillary Clinton was in their tiny church-belt town, population 3,231.

"We are considered a rural area, but she find in her heart to come to Williamsburg County! So we should applaud," Brown-Burrows said.

She then asked for the invocation.

"We can't do anything without prayer," she said.