New York - Barack Obama said on Saturday night he will take it as a “personal insult” if the African American community fails to turn out for the presidential election and encouraged black voters to support Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.
Obama delivered his final keynote address to the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, symbolically passing the torch to the person he hopes will succeed him next year. Clinton, his former secretary of state, was honored for becoming the first female presidential nominee of a major party.
Obama said his name may not be on the ballot, but issues of importance to the black community were, including justice, good schools and ending mass incarceration.
“I will consider it a personal insult, an insult to my legacy, if this community lets down its guard and fails to activate itself in this election,” Obama said with a stern look and booming passion. “You want to give me a good send-off, go vote.”
Obama also sought to blunt Trump’s recent efforts to reach out to black voters, saying Trump at one point in the race had said there’s never been a worse time to be a black person.
“I mean, he missed that whole civics lesson about slavery and Jim Crow, but we’ve got a museum for him to visit,” Obama said, a reference to next week’s opening of the National Museum of African American History and Culture. “We will educate him.” (The Guardian)