I am a praying person, and if I hadn't been during the time I was in the White House, I would have become one. Because it’s very hard to imagine living under that kind of pressure without being able to fall back on prayer and on my faith.

Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders were challenged during their debate Sunday to confront their white privilege and explain blind spots they may have when it comes to race.

“Being a white person in the United States of America, I know that I never had the experience that so many people in this audience had,” Clinton said. “I think it's incumbent on me … to urge white people to think what it is like to have ‘the talk’ with your kids, scared that your son or even daughter could get in trouble for no good reason and end up dead in a jail.”

Sanders talked about confronting his shock at the inability of a black colleague decades ago to hail a taxi in Washington because the experience was too humiliating, with the taxis driving by him because of his race. And he also spoke about his experience working with activists from Black Lives Matter, who initially were skeptical but came to appreciate the effort he put into understanding their perspective.

Hillary Clinton expressed regret for using the term "superpredators" while talking about gang crime in 1996, saying at Sunday's debate that she should have used different language.

African American activists have seized on her use of the phrase at an appearance in New Hampshire nearly 20 years ago, saying it was a coded -- and racist -- reference to young African American men.

I think it was a poor choice of words."

A black activist recently interrupted Clinton at a fundraiser to demand an apology for her use of the phrase and for the high incarceration rate for African Americans during and after her husband's presidency.

Bernie Sanders steered the discussion during Sunday's Democratic debate back into the 1990s, raising the welfare reform legislation championed by President Clinton and supported by his wife. 

“The poorest people of this country have become much poorer as a result of that,” Sanders said.

His debate opponent, Hillary Clinton, bridled at the characterization. “Let’s get the facts straight,” Clinton said. “That bill had a lot of provisions that were stripped out by George W. Bush, by Republican governors.” She said that had it been implemented as the Clintons hoped, the impact would not have been as harsh. But Clinton also made no apologies.

Sunday night’s debate between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders in Flint, Mich., began as a crucial test of whether Sanders can throw the front-runner off her game in a part of the country where he sees opportunity to cut into her lead.

The beginning of the night was dominated by discussion of the water crisis in Flint, a largely African American community grappling with the plight of contaminated drinking water exacerbated by government neglect. Sanders called for the resignation of Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, as he has repeatedly in recent weeks.

Here's a wrap-up about halfway through the debate:

CNN's Don Lemon used this song from the Tony-winning Broadway musical "Avenue Q" to introduce his question about racism in America.

A Chicago Tribune archival photo of a young man being arrested in 1963 at a Chicago protest shows Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders, his campaign has confirmed, bolstering the candidate's narrative about his civil rights activism.

Here's the story by the Tribune's Katherine Skiba: