Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has made an appeal to black voters in the Deep South.
What We Know:
- Sanders made an appeal Monday to black voters in the Deep South, stopping at a historically African American church and calling health care a “human right” that he equated to the civil rights movement.
- Sanders said, “Just as civil rights is a human right, health care is a human right,”
- Speaking before a racially diverse crowd at Mt. Zion AME Church in Alabama’s capital, Sanders renewed his calls for extending health care coverage to all Americans and reducing student debt.
- Sanders has acknowledged that he needs to do more to reach beyond his mostly white based, and used the Southern Christian Leadership’s 57th annual conference to reintroduce himself to black voters.
- Sanders continued his speech with many issues and concerns to the civil rights group, from voting rights to police brutality to for-profits prisons to the “failure” of the drug war. “Black lives do matter, and we must value black lives,” he said.
That message received applause Saturday night but may not satisfy some in the Black Lives Matter movement, who are not convinced racism will go away even if economic justice solved.
