Former Virginia Governor Wilder Tells Audience The Black Vote is Critical To a Clinton win

By Joey Matthews
Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Richmond Free Press

(TriceEdneyWire.com)
Former Virginia Gov. L. Douglas Wilder, the nation’s first elected African-American governor and one-time Democratic presidential candidate, issued a cautionary warning to Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton’s campaign prior to a talk and book-signing event at his alma mater, Virginia Union University.

When a Richmond Free Press reporter asked him to assess Mrs. Clinton’s skin-tight victory over Democratic rival U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders in the Feb. 1 Iowa caucuses, Wilder said, “I was shocked that it was that close.”
He continued, “I think everyone will see now that the only way Hillary Clinton will get the nomination is with a massive African-American vote,” he added. “Without that, it’s gone.”

Minutes later, the governor broached the subject of the African-American vote again in his address to about 100 people in the L. Douglas Wilder Library & Learning Resource Center, where he also autographed copies of his new autobiography, “Son of Virginia: A Life in America’s Political Arena.”

When people talk about a candidate’s potential for being elected president, “you hear, and I hear someone always saying, ‘We’ve just to have the young people’s vote for this to happen. We’ve just to get that millennial vote. We’ve just got to get the women’s vote. Don’t forget the Hispanic vote. We’ve got to have it.’
“Now I want you to raise your hands. How many of you have heard anyone publicly proclaim, ‘We have got to have the African-American vote?’

“And you won’t hear it,” he said. “People say, ‘Well, you know, they take us for granted.’ Well, what do you do about it? When you stand up, you’re not a team player.”