Race issue in US election battle
Updated on 14 January 2008
In an increasingly tense contest, the sensitive issue of race has burst into the campaign battle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
Senator Clinton is under fire from some African Americans, after she seemed to suggest President Lyndon Johnson deserved more credit than Martin Luther King for civil rights legislation passed in the 1960s.
The Hillary campaign was based on experience and that's why she was tempted into a historical comparison.
Rev Jesse Jackson interview
Jon Snow speaks exclusively to the Rev Jesse Jackson about the race issue in the US campaign battle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
Watch the interview
Mrs Clinton hit back saying her comments had been taken out of context, and accusing the Obama campaign of "deliberate distortion" to win over black voters in South Carolina ahead of next week's primary.
Well known black leaders springing to Hillary's defence just compounded the problem.
All the candidates say that race should play no part in this campaign.
But the first time an African American has ever had a serious chance of winning the White House it was perhaps inevitable.
They are now all deliberately, addressing black congragtions because the campiagn has moved on to states where black votes really matter.
But Hillary has offended many influential black leaders with comments that seemed to disparage the legacy of Martin Luther King.
It's all becoming so sensitive the Clintons complain everything they say is now put through a racial spin machine.
While Barak Obama generally tries to avoid refering directly to race. But when he invites voters to overcome the cynics and help him to make history they know what he means.
Hillary thought she'd go into this campaign looking like the face of change because she was trying to become the first feamle president.
But it's the prospect of the first African-American president that now seems much more exciting. The Clinton campaign are obviously struggling to know how to handle that.
The Revd Jesse Jackson, the American civil rights activist, spoke to Channel 4 News exclusively about this issue.
