While meeting with black leaders in New York City Tuesday, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton talked about her “North Star,” a phrase historically connected to slaves traveling on the Underground Railroad.
Clinton was at an event hosted at the National Urban League, where she met with civil rights leaders such as Rev. Al Sharpton.
“What I’m trying to do in my presidential campaign and what I will do as president is to lead a concerted effort to break every barrier that stands in the way of people living up to their God-Given potential. That has been my North Star ever since I went to work for the Children’s Defense Fund right out of law school,” said Clinton.
The father of John Freeman Walls, an escaped slave and famed abolitionist, said, “If you remember nothing else that I tell you, John, remember ‘the side of the tree that the moss grows on and the light of the North Star is the way to Canada and freedom, like my native Africa.’”