By Robert Kittle
President Barack Obama is scheduled to visit South Carolina on Friday, March 6, his first visit to the state since becoming president. He’ll be speaking at a youth rally at Benedict College, in Columbia.
Benedict junior Arnold Andrade says it’s been the talk on campus. “I am completely excited. I am thrilled, mostly because my school, my HBCU, has a lot going against us and we’re not the biggest or the most popular HBCU. For him to choose my school, which I speak so highly of, that’s amazing,” he says.
University of South Carolina political science professor Dr. Todd Shaw says the president’s visit will put the political spotlight on the state, and thinks the president might announce a new policy initiative. “He talks a lot about social policy at African-American schools. At Morehouse College, he talked about his young men initiative, or young men of color initiative. And I wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t stress something critical to African-Americans in higher education at Benedict,” he says.
South Carolina played a key role in Barack Obama’s nomination in 2008, and that was the last time he visited the state. South Carolina, Utah, and South Dakota are the only state’s he has not visited as president.
Charles Bierbauer, former CNN correspondent and now dean of the USC College of Mass Communications and Information Studies, says, “Clearly he’s trying to show some Democratic interest in South Carolina. He knows that there is an open election coming up, no incumbent running. He’s probably doing it as a favor to Jim Clyburn.” Clyburn is the only Democrat from South Carolina in the U.S. House or Senate, and he serves as Assistant Democratic Leader, the third-ranking Democrat in the House.
“Anytime the president comes to town it’s a relatively big deal in a relatively small place,” Bierbauer says. “He can run around Washington every day and no one will pay any attention. But when he comes to Columbia people will stop and pay attention. It’s the Office of the Presidency that gets some respect, whether or not you voted for the man.”
Details of the president’s visit will be released by the White House later in the week.
Andrade says he’ll be there. “This is just, this is a story to tell my kids, my grandkids, that I met the president. He came to my college, my HBCU. He didn’t go to Duke. He didn’t go to Clemson. USC’s right down the street. He chose my historical black college and that meant something to me. So that’ll be great.”
