Hillary Clinton Talks HBCUs, Small Business Advocacy, and the Obama ‘Muslim’ Rumors

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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.

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.

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