When “Black Lives Matter” protesters disrupted Bernie Sanders’ rally in Seattle, the Democratic presidential candidate took notice.
Speaking before 27,000 people at a rally in Los Angeles, Sanders tried to white-out black protesters’ recent criticisms of his campaign.
“No one will fight harder to end institutional racism,” Sanders vowed while standing on the stage directly in front of two visible African-Americans.
Sanders was introduced at the rally by his brand new national press secretary Simone Sanders, chairwoman of the National Coalition for Juvenile Justice. The press secretary railed against Officer Darren Wilson’s shooting of Michael Brown and congratulated the Black Lives Matter protests that sprang up in Ferguson, Missouri.
Bernie Sanders introduced a “Racial Justice” platform page on his campaign website Sunday that echoes and celebrates the rhetoric of the Black Lives Matter protesters.
“Sandra Bland, Michael Brown, Rekia Boyd, Eric Garner, Walter Scott, Freddie Gray, Tamir Rice, Samuel DuBose. We know their names. Each of them died unarmed at the hands of police officers or in police custody. The chants are growing louder. People are angry and they have a right to be angry,” the page reads.
Sanders was confronted on stage in Seattle last week by Black Lives Matter protesters, who interrupted his event to challenge him about his then-lack of a criminal justice reform platform.
Sanders is not the first candidate to buckle to the pressure of the Black Lives Matter movement. His Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton was pressured in a recent Facebook chat by Washington Post racial justice reporter Wesley Lowery to address the Black Lives Matter movement, after Clinton dodged a question about the movement at one of her events. Clinton recited the “Black Lives Matter” slogan at a small rally last month in South Carolina.