It does sound like he said “black”
However- taking the entire statement as a whole?
He doesn’t want to improve lives by taking from one group to give to another. He wants to help them by encouraging them to help themselves, and work on improving the economic environment that would make that possible.
Nothing to see here.
My two cents: it’s impossible that he said “black people’s lives.” If he had, the audience would have gasped—not clapped.