President Barack Obama knew it had been a while since he last visited South Carolina. And South Carolina knew it, too — hours before the motorcade pulled onto Benedict College's campus Friday, the line of people snaked down the sidewalk and around the building.
He told the crowd he would've come back soon, were it not for a few things on his schedule since his only other visit in 2008 when he won the democratic primary. But that didn't mean South Carolina wasn't important to him.
"Were it not for the Palmetto State," he said, "I might not be president."
In a town-hall question-and-answer session, Obama entertained queries about college tuition, his "My Brother's Keeper" initiative, his XL pipeline veto and the ongoing issues in Ferguson, Missouri.
But almost every question turned back to young people, their potential and their responsibility.
"You should be wildly optimistic about your possibilities and your future," Obama says about how young people can stay motivated
— Hannah Jeffrey (@hannahjeffrey34) March 6, 2015
"I'll be gone when the worst of this hits," he told the crowd after he urged students to think about climate change as something that affects them and not "science fiction."
Obama: "You're the ones who are going to have to live with it."
Says low gas prices won't last, oil will be more expensive/harder to extract
— Hannah Jeffrey (@hannahjeffrey34) March 6, 2015