ATLANTA - Former President Bill Clinton joined his wife’s battle for black votes in advance of Saturday’s South Carolina Democratic primary, reminding an African American church audience on Monday of his commitment to civil rights. 

Bill Clinton remains popular among blacks, who are a significant voting block in South Carolina and other Southern primaries, and that makes him a formidable weapon for Sen. Hillary Clinton as she seeks to defeat Sen. Barack Obama. 

Clinton said he was sitting alone in his house in Arkansas as a teenager when he heard Dr. Martin Luther King’s 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech and it transformed his outlook. 

“He freed us all to fight the civil rights battle, to fight the poverty battle. He made a place at the table for all of us,” Clinton said in reference to King. 

Clinton described volunteering in Washington, D.C., to help alleviate the effect of violence that followed King’s death in 1968 and argued that his post-presidential work against AIDS was part of his effort to fulfill King’s vision. 

He was also making a subtler point: his achievement as president made his wife’s candidacy a legitimate vehicle for black aspirations in the context of civil rights. 

Clinton was speaking at King’s old church, Ebenezer Baptist, at a delicate moment in the Clintons’ relations with black voters. 

Obama, who would be the first black president, threatens to sweep a majority of a constituency that regularly voted for the former president. 

On Sunday, Obama was Ebenezer’s keynote speaker and, though the church did not endorse him, its pastor, Raphael Warnock, drew parallels that outlined Obama’s promise in biblical terms. 

Warnock compared Obama to the Old Testament figure Joshua, who led the people of Israel from the wilderness and into the Promised Land 40 years after Moses had led them out of Egypt. 

In an allusion not lost on the audience, Warnock pointed out that King died 40 years ago and suggested that, like the people of Israel, U.S. blacks had been in the wilderness since. 

“Maybe it’s time to finish the job (of civil rights). Maybe it’s time to claim the promise,” Warnock said. 

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage. 

- Photo credit: REUTERS/Tami Chappell. Former President Bill Clinton speaks during Martin Luther King Commemorative Service at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.