Nikki Haley attempted to clean up her Civil War comments by mentioning she had Black friends “growing up”. The Republican presidential candidate faced criticism last month for answering a question at a town hall on what the Civil War was about without mentioning slavery. Ms Haley, former governor of South Carolina, has since walked back her response. “I should have said slavery right off the bat,” she said, during a town hall in Iowa on Thursday night (4 January). “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.”