Is McCain Courting Blacks In Case the Clintons Wrest the Democratic Nomination from Obama?
Date: Thursday, April 24, 2008 By: Sherrel Wheeler Stewart, BlackAmericaWeb.com When he arrived this week in the rural Alabama town of Camden, presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain was met by the world famous Gee’s Bend Quilters and others clapping and singing “Do Lord (Remember Me).” McCain acknowledged in his two-day visit to Alabama’s Black Belt that Republican support in the area has not been strong. Still, he pledged to be the president of all of the people. While in the Black Belt, McCain stood at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, where blacks in 1965 were beaten back by police as they attempted to march to Montgomery to demand their right to vote. He rode across the Alabama River on the Gee’s Bend Ferry, along with the quilters and others. The ferry was shut down for 44 years, closed initially because white leaders in Camden wanted to prevent blacks from coming to town to push for civil rights. Without the ferry, the trip to town was 80 miles for t
