Hillary Rodham Clinton on Thursday tried to show black activists that she's learned from her mistakes — and her opponents' mistakes — when she declared it "essential that we all stand up and say loudly and clearly, yes, black lives matter."  "This is not just a slogan. This should be a guiding principle,” Clinton told a forum of local elected officials in South Carolina.  The comments marked the second time this week that the Democratic presidential hopeful aligned herself with the movement that sprang from the 2012 shooting death of Trayvon Martin and aims to address systemic racism in the United States.  In a Facebook forum on Monday, Clinton wrote that everyone in the nation should "stand firmly behind" the idea, and promised to take actions to address racial inequality and its consequences.  But the Democratic front-runner frustrated activists last month when she declared that “all lives matter” during an event at a black church near Ferguson, Mo, site of the police-shooting death of Mchael Brown, an 18-year-old black man, and subsequent unrest. To some, the twist on the original rallying cry only takes the focus off the cause of addressing injustices facing African Americans. Democrat Martin O'Malley, a Clinton rival, was booed by activists last week when he made a similar statement.  Clinton on Thursday opened by calling it a "remarkable time for South Carolina," echoing President Obama in saying the state's response to the massacre of nine African Americans at Charleston's Emanuel AME Church was "an example of true grace."  "We all were grateful when the leaders of this state did the right thing and removed the Confederate battle flag from Statehouse grounds," Clinton said. "But you know better than most that the work of healing our communities and taking on the challenge of systemic racism is far from finished."  She said many schools and neighborhoods remained segregated, and said the criminal justice system in America is "out of balance."  "You have to rebuild bonds of trust and respect between elected officials and those whom they serve, between our law enforcement and the communities they serve," she said. "It's heartbreaking to read about another death of a young woman, Sandra Bland in Texas, another young African American life cut short. That's why I think it is essential that we all stand up and say loudly and clearly, yes, black lives matter."  Bland was arrested July 10 in Waller County, Texas, after initially being pulled over for a traffic violation and then clashing with a state trooper. Video from the incident shows the trooper yelling, "I will light you up," when Bland refused to exit her vehicle. Bland was found dead in her jail cell days later, after what a preliminary autopsy said was suicide.
Welcome to Trail Guide, a daily tour through the wilds of the 2016 presidential campaign. It's Thursday, July 23, and here's what we're watching: Donald Trump will bring his hard-line immigration rhetoric to the U.S.-Mexico border The Times' Kate Linthicum surveys the spectrum of Latinos' reactions...