|
Obama Draws Integrated Crowd in Chocolate
City
 Gary, Indiana Mayor
Rudy Clay addressed the crowd that came to see Presidential
candidate
Barack Obama as he campaigned in Gary, the city with the highest
percentage of Blacks among large American cities, and predicted that
the votes from Gary will be the difference in giving a May 6 Indiana
primary victory to the senator from neighboring Illinois.
Speaking just 30 minutes from his base in the Hyde Park neighborhood of
Chicago, Illinois Obama told the crowd with thunderous approval,
“people say ‘Black kids in Gary, that's not our problem.’ ‘Hispanic
kids in south Texas, that's not our problem.’ ‘Poor white kids in
Appalachia, that's not our problem.’ ‘Indian kids on a reservation, not
our problem.’ "Let me tell you something, every child is our
child."
Gary is the heart of Northwest Indiana, one the nation’s most racially
segregated regions, and home of the historic 1972 National Black
Political Convention. Clinton also visited Northwest
Indiana, but chose to rally in Gary’s surrounding majority White
communities. Jerry Davich, a
reporter for one of Northwest
Indiana’s daily newspapers, even asked readers of his column:
“will Northwest Indiana Whites enter Gary to see Obama rally?”
The answer: They did.
While Obama has won each of the many voting blocs at least once,
Clinton has failed to win the majority of Black voters in any state
including that in which she represents in the Senate, New York, or
where
she served as First Lady, Arkansas. (Obama won about 60% of the
New York Black vote, more than 70% in Arkansas).
Photo: Obama in Gary, Indiana. From the
Post-Tribune.
|
