From the NYT …
Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, the highest-ranking African-American in Congress, said he was rethinking his neutral stance in his stateâs presidential primary out of disappointment at comments by Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton that he saw as diminishing the historic role of civil rights activists.
Mr. Clyburn, a veteran of the civil rights movement and a power in state Democratic politics, put himself on the sidelines more than a year ago to help secure an early primary for South Carolina, saying he wanted to encourage all candidates to take part. But he said recent remarks by the Clintons that he saw as distorting civil rights history could change his mind.
âWe have to be very, very careful about how we speak about that era in American politics,â said Mr. Clyburn, who was shaped by his searing experiences as a youth in the segregated South and his own activism in those days. âIt is one thing to run a campaign and be respectful of everyoneâs motives and actions, and it is something else to denigrate those. That bothered me a great deal.â
