Mobile UPI  |   About UPI  |   UPI en Español  |   UPI Arabic  |   UPIU  |   My Account
Search:
Go

Black leaders: Clinton needs to reach out

|
|
 
  
Published: May 25, 2008 at 2:00 PM

NEW YORK, May 25 (UPI) -- Hillary Clinton's standing among some blacks has suffered because of comments made while campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination, critics say.

African-American elected officials and religious leaders in New York City say if Clinton wants to remain the Empire State's junior U.S. senator, she has fences to mend, the Los Angeles Times reported Sunday.

State Sen. Bill Perkins, who represents Harlem, said constituents recently phoned him because they wanted to demonstrate outside Bill Clinton's Harlem office against comments made by the former president. Likewise, state Assemblyman Michael Benjamin, who represents parts of the Bronx, said his wife removed a photograph of Bill Clinton from her office wall in protest.

State Assemblyman Karim Camara of Brooklyn said once the primary campaign is over Hillary Clinton needs to reach out to the black community.

"Once the campaign is over there has to be a lot of work to heal the wounds," Camara said. "She needs to go back to the black churches she visited in the course of her campaign and have a frank conversation about who she is and how much the support of the black community means."

Topics: Bill Clinton, Bill Perkins, Hillary Rodham Clinton
© 2008 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI's prior written consent.

Order reprints
  
Join the conversation
Most Popular Collections
Notable deaths of 2012 Scripps National Spelling Bee AmfAR Cinema Against AIDS gala
Indianapolis 500 Presidential Medal of Freedom Memorial Day around the nation
Additional Top News Stories
1 of 20
Singer Janelle Monae arrives at the 2012 MTV Movie Awards in Universal City, California
View Caption
Singer Janelle Monae arrives for the MTV Movie Awards at the Gibson Amphitheatre in Universal City, California. UPI/Jim Ruymen
fark
Man turns dead pet cat into remote-controlled helicopter, calls it art (w/WTF pics)
"Good News" clubs teach children in public schools the Biblical importance of killing all nonbelievers...
Five arrested in prostitution sting. Article lists their names, ages and distance from a church
Photoshop this power tower technician
Driving drunk and unlicensed, with a kid not even buckled let alone in a safety seat, en route to...
Man killed in Spencer fire. The lava lamps must have ignited the blacklight posters