Democrats head south to woo crucial US demography

ROCK HILL, United States: Breaking bread, attending church services or visiting historically black universities, Democratic candidates descended on South Carolina last weekend appealing to African-American voters, a potential key to victory in their race for the White House.

More than 20 candidates seeking to challenge the Republican Donald Trump flocked to the southeastern state courting a demographic that, while just 12 percent of the US population, could play an outsized role in picking the 2020 Democratic nominee.

Adressing a cheering crowd of 600 in the small city of Rock Hill on Sunday, liberal senator Bernie Sanders accused Trump of seeking to “divide us up” along ethnic lines -- while his own campaign was bringing people “together.”

“It brings us together in the struggle for economic justice, for social justice, for racial justice and for environmental justice.” The gathering was in a gymnasium on the campus of Clinton College, founded in the late 19th century to accommodate black students, and 40-something voter Stephonia Wright appreciated Sanders’s choice of location.