WASHINGTON — In their quest for black voters, Democratic presidential front-runners Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama raced to Selma, Ala., six months ago to commemorate a historic civil rights march. Each used tightly scripted church sermons to declare their personal links to the freedom fighters of the 1960s.
But Thursday, as thousands poured into a small Louisiana town to protest the case of six black youths that has emerged as a cause celebre for the modern-day civil rights movement, the candidates kept their distance -- addressing the issue with measured statements and appearances this week on black-oriented radio shows.
The contrast underscored the challenges posed to each candidate by the case of the so-called Jena Six.
Both Clinton and Obama need black support, particularly in the crucial South Carolina Democratic primary, where half of the electorate is black and polls show the front-runners competing neck and neck for that bloc. But both campaigns also must avoid potential political damage from becoming linked too closely to a racially explosive case that may carry far less moral clarity in the minds of the broader electorate than do the civil rights battles of old.
"I'm a little disappointed," Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick (D-Mich.), chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, said of the candidates' responses to the Jena case.
"The Democratic presidential candidates should weigh in," she added. "It's a much larger issue, much larger than Jena. If they want to lead America, they should speak on it -- on Jena specifically, but in a broader spirit."
The case erupted last year after a series of racially charged events, including the hanging of nooses by three white teens from a tree at their high school. The three were suspended from school but not charged with a crime. Later, after months of sporadic incidents, six black teens were arrested in the beating of a white student. The black students were charged with attempted second-degree murder, but those charges were later reduced.
Civil rights leaders have said prosecutors showed racial bias in bringing such tough charges against the black students.
Obama, a former civil rights lawyer who would be the first black president, issued a statement this month calling on the local district attorney to drop the "excessive charges" against the black teens. He said the case "shows that we still have a lot of work to do as a nation to heal our racial tensions," and he pledged to "monitor this case closely."
