By In the church here where, 60 years ago, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. inspired residents to boycott the local bus network, Hillary Clinton on Tuesday called for overhauling the criminal justice system, saying there is something “profoundly wrong” when black men are disproportionately stopped and searched by the police, arrested or killed.
She made her remarks to pews packed with civil rights lawyers who descended on the Alabama capital to commemorate the day Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus to a white man, a moment that became pivotal in the fight for civil rights. Six decades have passed since Ms. Parks’s arrest on Dec. 1, 1955, and yet as Mrs. Clinton addressed the crowd the country was reeling from another shooting of an unarmed black man by a white police officer in Chicago, and grappling with civil rights and racial justice issues that have become central to the 2016 presidential campaign.
In the stained-glass sanctuary of Dexter Avenue King Memorial Church, Mrs. Clinton recalled sitting next to Ms. Parks in 1999 as President Bill Clinton delivered the State of the Union address. “Rosa hadn’t changed much,” she said. “She was the same lovely, dignified, determined person she always was, but America had changed.”But in an address that began with a verse from the Book of Psalms — “This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it” — Mrs. Clinton said there was still much work to be done, noting setbacks in access to voting and in the widespread incarceration of young black men.
The event, organized by the National Bar Association, the country’s largest organization of African-American lawyers and judges, emphasized the role lawyers played in the Montgomery bus boycott, which disrupted this city’s public transportation for more than a year and led to a Supreme Court decision that struck down Alabama laws requiring segregated buses.
The two-day event was one of only a handful of times since Mrs. Clinton announced her candidacy in April that she addressed organizations that were unaffiliated with her campaign and had not endorsed her. She was joined by a lineup of lawyers, elected officials and ministers who have been central in civil rights struggles, past and present. The civil rights lawyers Fred. D. Gray and Benjamin L. Crump — the president of the National Bar Association, who has represented the families of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown — and the Rev. Bernice King, the youngest child of Dr. King, also spoke at the event, which concluded with a rendition of “We Shall Overcome.”
Mr. Gray, who represented Ms. Parks and Dr. King, received a standing ovation when he called Mrs. Clinton “the next president of the United States.” He talked about the first official planning meeting for the Montgomery bus boycott, a meeting that “took place in the basement of this church” in 1955, and said, “The struggle for equal justice continues.”
Since the earliest stages of her presidential campaign, Mrs. Clinton has tried to solidify her bond with black voters. She devoted her campaign’s first major policy speech last spring to presenting her plan to reform the criminal justice system and help stem the practice of incarcerating nonviolent offenders, citing how it was hurting black communities.
“It’s time to change our approach and end the era of mass incarceration in America,” Mrs. Clinton said. “And we must do more to address the epidemic of gun violence that is plaguing our country.”
Mrs. Clinton has met with the mothers and families of several black Americans killed by white police officers or by gun violence, including Mr. Brown, Mr. Martin, Tamir Rice and others. “My heart breaks for them,” she said Tuesday. Mrs. Clinton’s efforts have not yet broken through to many of the young activists involved in the Black Lives Matter movement who have protested several of her campaign rallies. “I appreciate their passion, but I am sorry they didn’t listen,” a seemingly frustrated Mrs. Clinton said last month. “Because some of what they have been demanding I am offering and intend to fight for as president.” Anika H. Patterson, a lawyer in Washington who was visiting Alabama for the two-day event, said she hoped Mrs. Clinton could put the current Black Lives Matter movement in the context of the larger civil rights movement. “There’s a real leadership role needed there,” Ms. Patterson said.
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