Edwards pays visit to Rock Hill (S.C. city mired in poverty)

[JohnLocke]

Edwards pays visit to Rock Hill
Candidate sees part of city mired in poverty
By Jim Morrill--Charlotte Observer
Saturday, November 3, 2007
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11/2/2007 Senator John Edwards smiles while talking questions as near Hope Whitlock's home in the Blackmon Road community of Rock Hill which still has no city water or sewer services. Edwards talked about the loss of rural jobs and the urban poor.

ROCK HILL --Down a dusty gravel road, 27 miles south of uptown Charlotte, Democrat John Edwards got a glimpse Friday of what even some residents call Third World-type poverty.

Edwards, on a two-day swing through the Palmetto State, stepped out of Hope Whitlock's ramshackle home, one of many in Rock Hill's Blackmon Road community. Whitlock shares her four-room house with 11 others. With no septic system, they use an outdoor portable toilet serviced just once a month.

"A lot of America doesn't know people live like this," Edwards said, stepping down the stairs after visiting the house.

Earlier, he visited Donnie Ingram's home outside Lancaster and met with a dozen laid-off textile workers.

It was part of an effort to cast Edwards as the candidate who stands up for the poor and middle-class.

At a stop in Cheraw, Edwards continued to attack rival Democratic Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York, accusing her of "double-talk" and saying she "should be held to the same standard that everyone else is held to."
(...)
Dressed in jeans and rolled-up sleeves, he entered Whitlock's house on Blackmon Road trailed by a national media contingent and accompanied by actor Danny Glover, who said Edwards' focus on poverty is what attracted his support.

"It almost feels like you're in a disaster area," Glover said of the clapboard house with rotting wood and sagging windows.

"This is ridiculous. Unimaginable. Intolerable."

Edwards praised a local nonprofit called "A Place for Hope" working to improve conditions in the area.

"This is inspiring, what's going on in this community," he said. "I've seen places like this across America."

In Lancaster, Edwards and a smaller group of reporters, including George Stephanopoulos and his ABC News crew, crowded the kitchen of Ingram's double-wide mobile home. Most of the people he met with had been laid off after decades working for what had been the town's biggest employer, Springs Global.

Springs, which employed more than 14,000 workers as recently as the early 1990s, is down to a few hundred after moving most of its manufacturing overseas.

Edwards listened as workers talked about the difficulty finding new jobs and health care. One asked how America could spend billions on war when so many needs were unmet back home.

"You're preaching to the choir, brother," Edwards replied. "We've got to end this war."

http://www.charlotte.com/540/story/346381.html

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Edwards To Visit Poverty-Stricken York County Road
WSOC-TV

ROCK HILL, S.C. -- A neighborhood where running water and working toilets are luxuries is preparing for a visit from a presidential candidate.

About a hundred people on Blackmon Road outside Rock Hill live in extreme poverty. Many homes have no running water, and local churches have donated porta-johns so residents can use the bathroom.

Former North Carolina Senator John Edwards will walk the streets of the BlackmonRroad community Friday afternoon. He'll meet people there and talk about the importance of job training to get people out of poverty.

Eva Mae Whitlock has to walk to her mother's house to get water from a well. She said this is a life she's used to, but seeing Edwards here will make a difference.

"He might get things going, get things pushed a little faster, for the people back here in this community," she said.

It was just this year that a community center in the neighborhood called A Place For Hope finally got sewer and water lines. Now some residents carry jugs there,and fill them up from a hose to have clean drinking water.

Karen McKernan runs the center.

"In the same York County where we have Tega Cay with yachts on the lake, we have people living without basic sewer and septic systems, where children have to go outside to an outhouse," she said.

Since 2000, volunteers and local churches have helped clean up the area once known as Trash Pile Road. People once lived in rusted school buses and shacks that were close to falling down. Now most of those makeshift homes have been demolished or hauled away.

The community center provides some education and job training for residents, but grant money to extend basic services further has been hard to come by. Those on Blackmon Road don't expect much help anymore, but they never expected to see a presidential hopeful at their door either.

Hopi Whitlock said she's looking forward to meeting Edwards.

"I'm going to shake his hand and hope he gets the job," she said.

http://www.wsoctv.com/news/14489256/detail.html

[surfermaw]

1. I saw this in the Charlotte Observer,

This is terrible for the United States. I am so ashamed to see this, taking jobs out of the U.S., to other countries while Americans suffer. Most of the textile people were really good, people who worked for low wages in a right to work states. Some were so dedicated to their companies.

[zalinda]

2. Poor people are amazing

"He might get things going, get things pushed a little faster, for the people back here in this community". They aren't asking for miracles, just to have things get a little better in time. What a difference between them and those who can't wait for 2 minutes to get their expensive Latte.

zalinda

[Catchawave]

3. Good for John Edwards

:kick: 'n' R :toast:

[Nutmegger]

4. R&K #6!!!

:kick::bounce::thumbsup:

[smiley_glad_hands]

5. I want a candidate that is reminiscent of FDR.

John Edwards is that candidate.

[Ninga]

6. Respect, compassion, understanding...how much longer do we have to wait?