I slipped up in wording "for-profit", should have just said prisons in general. I admit that mistake. However, for-profit or not, there are a lot of people in there who were only guilty of petty crimes, and most of those people are black and Latino men. If certain laws weren't around that unfairly discriminated againt them, it wouldn't be like that. If institutional racism wasn't a thing, many of them likely wouldn't be forced into the circumstances that got them placed into prison. So ultimately it doesn't matter if they're for-profit or not because they all benefit from the same laws, some of which were pushed by the Clintons in the 90s, not directly intended to harm certain individuals sure, but nonetheless, that was a massive byproduct of it all.
It's maybe also a better question to ask...why did she accept money from those prisons in the first place? Up until she donated it back she was sitting on that extra cash cushion, and if attention wasn't being drawn in that direction, likely would still have it or used it to fund her campaign. Just think about that: using money from prison companies to fund a nationwide Presidential campaign. Not so much different than a music mogul using drug money to fund a record label. Another way to look at it is, if she wasn't running, that money wouldn't have been returned. That's just the reality of it.
And again, them "listening" doesn't have to be specific to that exact rally at that exact location. Like many politicians Hilary has said those things time and again over the years, phrases packaged differently but the message being the same. Yet nothing ever comes of it. So those particular protesters, were likely not wanting to hear what essentially boils down to the same thing they've probably been hearing for what feels like forever, and in that context you can't blame them. The Democrat establishment keeps saying "we'll fix X and Y", but as long as that pertains to particular groups, X and Y are never fixed, or at least not seriously. Hilary is the face of the Democrat establishment right now, so she's carrying the burden of failed promises from Obama, Clinton, Johnson, Carter etc. on her shoulders.
Perhaps that's unfair on her, but it's the situation. So is she for real, or is she just another big talker that'll come up short? My money's on the latter but if she's elected at the very least hopefully she's as progressive on the things Obama was, and more progressive on things he seemed shy on (gun control, police brutality in particular, etc.).