ROCK HILL, S.C. _ Jennie Hughes stared up at Democratic presidential candidate Tom Steyer, who was standing on a stage Monday night in the middle of the Freedom Center in Rock Hill, S.C. About a hundred people sat around him.
Steyer was finishing up his speech. And Hughes, who wore an orange and yellow-striped shirt, didn't take her eyes off the billionaire activist from California.
"We're the only country that doesn't have healthcare as a right for everybody," Steyer said. "That's crazy."
Hughes, from York, shouted, "Crazy!"
"We're the only country that thinks educating young people is an expense to be minimized," he continued. "That's crazy."
"That's crazy!" Hughes shouted.
"I'm somebody who's sitting here going like, 'I don't want to meet in the middle," Steyer said. "We're not like Republicans at all. They are doing something wrong."
"Yes they are," Hughes said quietly.
"And we have to stop that _ not by saying, 'We're just like them,'" he said. "But by saying what they're doing has got to change. And everybody's got to come vote and change it together. That's the fight we want to win."
"That's right!" Hughes shouted above the claps of the crowd. Steyer smiled at her.
Steyer, who has sunk millions into his South Carolina campaign ahead of the state's Feb. 29 primary, has climbed to the top three slots in recent state polls. And he has started to encroach on Joe Biden's lead among black voters in the state, who are expected to cast a majority of the primary vote.
And Hughes is one example.
"He speaks to me," Hughes, 68, said at the end of Steyer's event. "I was one that couldn't go in the restaurants and eat. It hasn't been that long ago. I tell my cousins and nieces, 'I'm that generation right in York.' We get beat down, but we have to keep moving. He's that change."
Steyer continued his effort Monday night in Rock Hill to secure black support, speaking on his plans to increase funding for historically black colleges and universities, and combat environmental justice problems and housing policies that have disproportionately affected communities of color.
"The way I've always done climate and the way that I will do climate _ start with environmental justice, start with black and brown communities where people can't breathe without getting asthma," he said. "And if you turn on the tap water and mix up some lemonade you get sick."
Steyer said he will work to close achievement gaps in education through free, universal pre-K, and to address student debt, he will offer two years of free community college and 1% interest rate on the debt.
"Let's say you have $30,000 in debt. That's a lot of debt," Steyer said. "The problem with the interest rates they have, you're going to be paying back multiples of the 30,000 bucks. Why are we loan sharking kids who are trying to get an education?"
The crowd erupted with claps.
Steyer paused. "Did I talk about HBCU's?" he asked the crowd.
"OK you guys should know I have a proposal for HBCU's, where there is a lot of student debt," he continued. "They have high tuition because they got 42% of their federal support cut over the last decade."
Steyer said he plans to invest $125 billion over 10 years in historically black colleges and universities.
"Let me talk about race _ in every policy area in the United States, there's an unspoken substantial, important aspect of race that people don't talk," he said.
Steyer also said he will work to right past policies that have denied home ownership to communities of color.
"Banks, deliberately, for decades refused to lend money for mortgages to black people," he said.
People in the crowd shouted, "Yes!"
"How are you going to discuss housing unless you talk the truth about what has happened and how we got here?" he said. "Housing is the basic engine of family prosperity in the United States."
Steyer, who has captured endorsements from black South Carolina lawmakers, secured two more Monday night.
State Reps. John King, of Rock Hill, and Annie McDaniel, of Fairfield, who both formerly endorsed U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, announced their support for Steyer. Booker dropped out of the presidential race last month.
"He's investing in communities of color, poor communities and communities that are forgotten," King said. "And he's the only one that I did not have to educate or teach about the things that are happening in the African American community and communities of color and poor communities. He was already there."
McDaniel hinted at criticism Steyer received last week for paying one of his endorsers, South Carolina Rep. Jerry Govan, an Orangeburg Democrat who leads the state's Legislative Black Caucus, more than $40,000 to work as a campaign adviser.
"I know some people want to say, 'Well you know, Tom Steyer is just dropping money into the African American community,'" McDaniel said during the event. "Well, I don't consider him just dropping money into our community. What he's doing is planting seeds."
And Greenwood County Councilwoman Edith Childs, known for coining President Barack Obama's "fired up, ready to go" campaign chant, told the crowd she chose to endorse Steyer because he is an honest candidate.
"See what I do about people that I really want to support, I pray about them," she said. "When I prayed about Tom Steyer, the Lord said, 'Edith, he's OK. I got your back.' So, when the Lord tells me he's got my back, it's all right with me."
Childs shared a song with the crowd that she made for Steyer.
"Tom Steyer," she chanted. "He's fired up. He's fired up."
The crowd clapped along.
"He's fired up. And Trump's got to go. And Trump's got to go."
