2024 CNN Town Hall: on Civil Rights

Nikki Haley: Everybody associates the Civil War with slavery

HALEY: If you grow up in South Carolina, literally in second and third grade, you learn about slavery. You grow up and you have -- you know, I had Black friends growing up. It is a very talked-about thing. We have a big history in South Carolina when it comes to, you know, slavery, when it comes to all the things that happened with the Civil War, all that. I was thinking past slavery and talking about the lesson that we would learn going forward. I shouldn't have done that. I should have said 'slavery.' But in my mind, that's a given, that everybody associates the Civil War with slavery.

Nikki Haley: America has stains about racism, but fix it along the way

HALEY: When you look at the Declaration of Independence, it was that "men are created equal," right? I think it's important that we tell all kids that, "Look, America is not perfect. We have our stains. We know that. But our goal should always be to make today better than yesterday."

Q: Wasn't America founded institutionally on many racist precepts, including slavery?

HALEY: It said, "All men are created equal;" the intent was to do the right thing. Now, did they have to go fix it along the way? Yes. But I don't think the intent was never that we were going to be a racist country. The intent was everybody was going to be created equally. And as we went through time, they fixed the things that were not "All men are created equal." They made sure women became equal, too. But I refuse to believe that the premise of when they formed our country was that it was a racist country to start with.

Ron DeSantis: DE&I is discrimination, exclusion, and indoctrination

DeSANTIS: Well, the U.S. is not a racist country, and we've overcome things in our history. I think the founding fathers established a set of principles that are universal. Now they may not have been universally applied at the time but I think they understood that those principles would be the engine for progress for generations to come.

Q: Is the Republican Party a racist party?

DeSANTIS: I think the Republican Party stands for merit and achievement and colorblindness. In Florida, I've eliminated things at our universities like this DE&I. They say it's Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, but it's really very ideological. I think the way it's actually practiced, it stands for discrimination, exclusion, and indoctrination. And it's wrong. Let's not divvy people up based on race, ethnicity, or gender. Let's treat people as individuals, not as members of group.