Clinton takes shot at Bush on race in front of black activists

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — The heavyweights of the crowded 2016 presidential field, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Jeb Bush, laid out starkly different visions Friday for uplifting the plight of blacks in America, as the two appeared at the same event for the first time since they announced their runs for office.

Each came to the annual conference of the National Urban League in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., to sway a crucial segment of the electorate.

Ms. Clinton is eager to maintain the enthusiasm that black voters showed for President Barack Obama when they turned out for him in record numbers.

Mr. Bush hopes to widen the appeal of the GOP to the minority populations that are becoming an increasingly dominant force in presidential elections.

Overshadowing the event was the sustained period of racial unrest in America, sparked by the 2012 shooting death of Florida teen Trayvon Martin and propelled by rioting in Ferguson, Mo., and Baltimore as well as the recent rampage by a gunman in a historic black church in Charleston, S.C. The prison cell death of Sandra Bland, an African-American woman arrested after she failed to use her turn signal, also weighed heavily on the convention.

Ms. Clinton, as well as other Democrats who spoke at the event, forcefully and personally confronted those issues. Mr. Bush took a more subdued approach, presenting a conservative agenda he vows would empower innercity minorities.

Ms. Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, have deep ties in the nation’s prominent civil rights groups, and among mainstream politicians, they are favorites in the black community. The former secretary of state projected a level of empathy and authenticity that the other candidates had difficulty matching. She was the only speaker to receive a standing ovation.

The event afforded Ms. Clinton an opportunity to draw a sharp contrast with Mr. Bush and his oft-repeated “right to rise” slogan. She warned the hundreds of activists at the event to be wary of “a mismatch between what some candidates say in a venue like this and what they actually do when elected.”

Then, without mentioning Mr. Bush by name, she declared: “I don’t think you can credibly say that everyone has a ‘right to rise,’ and then say you are for phasing out Medicare or for repealing Obamacare. People can’t rise if they can’t afford health care. They can’t rise if the minimum wage is too low to live on. They can’t rise if their governor makes it harder to get a college education. And you cannot seriously talk about the right to rise and support laws that deny the right to vote.”

But for much of the speech, Ms. Clinton strayed from her usual talking points to dive deep into the challenges of being black in America and the structural racism embedded in the country’s culture and economy. “This is not just about statistics, as damning as they can be,” she said. “This is about Americans doing some soul-searching and holding ourselves to account. … This is about all of us looking into our hearts and examining our assumptions and fears and asking ourselves what more can I do in my life to counter hate and injustice.”

She talked about the need for whites to ask themselves what it would be like “to sit our son down and have ‘the talk.’ Or if people followed us around stores or locked their car doors when we passed.”

Mr. Bush took the stage last. He ignored Ms. Clinton’s barb in his remarks, during which he declared, “There are unjust barriers to opportunity and upward mobility in this country,” and touted his record in Florida appointing black judges and boosting the number of minorityowned businesses.

But Mr. Bush emphasized that his economic plan, which focuses on boosting the gross domestic product, would prove more beneficial to inner urban communities than those pushed by Democrats.

“Four percent growth is more enterprise in urban areas, more people moving in, a higher tax base and more revenues — in other words, a better chance to save our cities,” he said. “We can do this as a country. We can grow at a pace that lifts up everybody, and there is no excuse for not trying.”