Tom Joyner, a leading voice on radio who reaches nearly 8 million listeners;Â many African American, hosted former Secretary of State and Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton on his show this morning.
Resident journalists Don Lemon, Jacque Reid, Sybil Wilkes, and Roland Martin were also part of the conversation, asking questions on the issues that affect communities of color.
[Related: President Obama Invites Ahmed Mohamed to the White House]
Check out the highlights from the show below:
On the value of HBCUs:
Clinton: I know, as you all do, how important the HBCUs are in our higher education system. They have closed the opportunity gap for hundreds of thousands of students each year, and have been really in the front lines of producing leaders.
So, under my new college compact, we’re going to support, encourage, and reward HBCUs that help our students succeed. So students can complete college without cost being a barrier or debt holding them back.
I believe that for all of the HBCUs that are trying to do this important work, we’re going to have federal funds investing more in the public HBCUs. We’re going to do more to provide them the support, ensuring that the Pell grants can be used to fund living expenses. And for private HBCUs, we’re going to have a dedicated $25 billion dollar fund to provide support to them.
Generally, we’re going to make sure that we have extra opportunities for HBCUs because I think the role they play is indispensable.
On small business advocacy and increasing resources for black entrepreneurs:
I’ve said all over the country that I want to be the small business president and I, particularly, want to be the small business president for women and minority-owned businesses because I think, and for a variety of reasons, a lot of it is related to the financial crisis.
I want to make the Small Business Administration, once again, a really aggressive and vigorous agency. Reaching out for people—not just waiting for folks to come to them—I want to do more networking so that, literally, we have a team of people who are available 24/7 to council and support and send on their way people with good ideas.
I had an African American woman say to me one time, that more good ideas die in the parking lots of banks than anywhere in America. What we’ve got to do is reverse that and there’s a lot of programs that are already in place, but they’re not being given the emphasis or the funding or support that they need.
(Continued on next page)
I think we need to look at what are the niches we have to fill, so that more people can find the help that they specifically need. I’m excited by this. Most new jobs in America are started by small businesses as they grow, and we have got to get back into the job creation business. And you can’t do that if you don’t support small businesses.
On rumors that Hillary Clinton started the ‘birther’ (that alleges that President Obama is not a ‘natural-born American’) and once had a confrontation with Obama about it:
First of all, it is totally untrue. Secondly, the president and I have never had any kind of confrontation like that. This is such a bad example of what is wrong with instantaneous reactions and Americans getting all worked up and people feeding prejudice and paranoia like Donald Trump.
And, obviously, all of us have to stand against it, and I have been blamed for nearly everything. That was a new one to me, but I’ll just keep going and talking about what I want to do to get incomes rising and making college affordable, and making all of the positive changes that we have to be worried about.
On women’s reproductive rights and why Planned Parenthood is important:
Planned Parenthood has been taking care of women for years, for so long. Millions of women have gotten basic healthcare there, and what I really resent is that when these people go after Planned Parenthood, they are, in essence, saying they want to deprive millions of women from getting cancer screenings, finding out whether they have HIV, [and] getting help on family planning and contraceptives.
It is a mean spirited, partisan attack on an organization that has been there for women, often the only place that young women, lower-income women, have been able to go and get treated with respect and get the kind of healthcare they deserve. What you see is the ongoing debate over abortion, and everybody can have their own opinion about that. It is legal and therefore in those facilities, which are a minority of the facilities of Planned Parenthood, where abortion is provided (and not using one federal dollar to do it), the Republicans want to basically destroy the entire program that Planned Parenthood stands for. I am adamantly opposed to that.
On Black Lives Matter and issues with law enforcement:
We ought to be looking at what we are going to do to lead on social justice by admitting and taking on the systemic racism that we still face in America. Just look at, you know, how President Obama has led us through difficult times and every step of the way, faced unrelenting opposition and obstruction and, once again, here in this campaign, we are seeing a lot of those same voices and forces coming up and trying to, you know, turn the clock back.
So what I hope we can do is come together around reforming criminal justice, but not just reforming the inequities that exist—the disparities that unfortunately persist—but looking at how we are going to close the opportunity gap and in particular, how we are going to help young people, and predominantly, you know, young men, have different choices because they have different opportunities so, this is a big issue for me
And I want the folks to know that they can count on me to address it, and they can count on me to work hard with the communities that are really focused on this to make a difference.