First Lady Hails Students in Rally Against Racism

First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton praised middle and high school students attending a rally against racism Tuesday for “standing up for what is best about America.”

At the Team Harmony rally in Boston, which has seen its share of racial strife, the first lady talked to 20 teenagers onstage between speeches by Red Sox star first baseman Mo Vaughn and New England Patriots fullback Sam Gash, as about 10,000 other students listened and cheered.

Tuesday’s dialogue was part of an annual event by Team Harmony, an initiative begun by Boston-area professional sports teams in 1994 to help middle- and high-schoolers combat bigotry.

Clinton cited the effort as an effective program in her book, “It Takes a Village and Other Lessons Children Teach Us.”

After hearing several tales of how the students had experienced and combated racism, anti-Semitism or homophobia, Clinton told them: “You really are standing up for what is best about America.”

The first lady told the children that the best way to handle racist behavior is to refuse to respond.

One student asked Clinton whether she thought affirmative action has helped or hurt American race relations. She replied that it has done both, by uplifting poor minorities and by being “misconstrued and misunderstood and used in a negative way.”

Boston’s past includes vigorous opposition to busing to integrate schools in the ‘60s and ‘70s. About 30 years after passage of federal civil rights laws, the city remains one of racial and ethnic enclaves.