The Portland event averted the controversy of Saturday’s Sanders visit to Seattle, where Black Lives Matter protesters interrupted one of the candidate’s speeches to demand he make police violence against African-Americans a focus of his platform.
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A video posted to Twitter shows two young women confronting a man who said they could speak “after Senator Sanders“.
Bernie Sanders spoke before a crowd of thousands at the Moda Center in Portland on Sunday, shortly after activists against police brutality organized to shed light on the year that has passed since the shooting death of Michael Brown. Sanders took a backseat to the rally as the protesters took over and made a speech of their own.
The organizers of the event allowed the period of silence while others in the crowd insisted with shouts that the group leave the stage.
But speaking at the Washington Huskies’ Hec Edmundson Pavilion later in the day, Sanders was greeted with a cheering crowd filling the venue from one side to the other.
A back-and-forth between Sanders organizer Robby Stern and two protesters – Marissa Johnson, and Mara Jacqueline Willaford – was captured on camera by NBC News.
Doors for tonight’s rally open at 6 p.m. and the event begins at 7 p.m. Sanders’ campaign is asking attendees to use the Metro to get to the event.
“I think some people haven’t heard it yet”, she said.
Sanders has been dogged by Black Lives Matters protesters since July.
A national nurses union warmly welcomed Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders to Oakland on Monday, along with his message of taxing the wealthy, better health care for all, and free college tuition for students. “Too many lives have been destroyed by war on drugs, by incarceration; we need to educate people“. On Saturday, Sanders stopped in Seattle, Washington to speak about protecting and expanding the scope of Social Security.
But he has also become a target for Black Lives Matter activists.
“It is not a radical idea to say that if someone works 40 hours a week, that person should not be living in poverty”, Sanders said.
“The problem with Sanders’, and with white Seattle progressives in general, is that they are utterly and totally useless (when not outright harmful) in terms of the fight for Black lives”.
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“It’s not just about, I fought for civil rights and I protested and I sat at the lunch counters”, Symone Sanders said, parroting a line the senator regularly uses on the stump. “But if you don’t want me to be here, that’s OK. And we must value black lives”.
