Race Enters Discussion Now That Edwards Is In S.C.
ST. HELENA ISLAND, S.C. -- Off the beaten path in this South Carolina community, in a hall where Martin Luther King organized meetings at the height of the civil rights movement, John Edwards told voters that race is still a clear divisive issue in America.
"Race plays an enormous role in the economic conditions of Americans," said Edwards. "We can pretend it's not true but decade after decade of slavery followed by decade after decade of segregation, followed by decade after decade of discrimination has an impact. It has an effect."
As many as 300 voters (about 20 percent of whom were African-American) listened inside the Penn Center - one of the first schools in America for freed black slaves - as Edwards listed off the statistics proving the disadvantages faced by African-Americans in the U.S.
"The average net worth of black families is about $8,000; white families is about $80,000," said Edwards with one of his more sobering statistics. "Let me tell you, we're not moving in the right direction."
Race issues were rare in Edwards's stump speeches in New Hampshire and Iowa. But with such a heavy black population expected to vote in the South Carolina primary this month, it should come as no surprise that Edwards brought up the subject unprompted in tonight's speech and, likely, in many of his speeches to come in the next couple of weeks.