Top Dems to march on S.C. Capitol

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- Taking a brief intermission from their sparring, the top three Democratic presidential contenders plan to join thousands of others here Monday morning for a symbolically charged commemoration of Martin Luther King Jr.

Hillary Rodham Clinton, John Edwards and Barack Obama will all appear at an NAACP-sponsored march to the state Capitol, where the Confederate flag still flies on the grounds. The event highlights the importance of the black vote in Saturday's Democratic primary in South Carolina, where African-Americans make up close to half of the Democratic electorate here.

On the eve of the King holiday, the leading Democrats made appearances at historic black churches. Clinton, who beat Obama in Saturday's Nevada caucuses, attended services at the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem. Obama spoke from King's old pulpit: Atlanta's Ebenezer Baptist. Edwards attended an evening service at the Zion Baptist Church here.

In this state, the civil rights struggle King helped lead before his assassination in 1968 looms as unfinished business. Politically, South Carolina is "one of the most racially polarized states in the country," said David Bositis of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a Washington think tank that studies black voting patterns.

In the last presidential election, 78% of South Carolina whites voted for Republican George W. Bush; 85% of the state's blacks voted for Democrat John Kerry. More than one of every four South Carolinians is African-American, but voters here have never elected a black politician to a statewide office.

House Democratic Whip James Clyburn, who played a major role in convincing the Democratic Party to hold an early primary in his state, hopes the contest will mark a turning point in South Carolina's political history.

"Part of my mission in life is to try to get our country, and certainly my state, beyond these things that divide us," said Clyburn, the highest-ranking African-American in Congress.

Tonight, the Congressional Black Caucus hosts a Democratic presidential debate in Myrtle Beach, a golf resort community the NAACP once slapped with a civil rights lawsuit. This is the first year that the city of Myrtle Beach is honoring the federal King holiday.