Hoping to reach African-American voters nationally in his
bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, Sen. Bernie Sanders on Tuesday
toured the West Baltimore neighborhood where Freddie
Gray was arrested — and likened the poverty he observed to that of
the Third World.
The independent senator, who describes himself as a
democratic socialist, walked the streets of Sandtown-Winchester for about 20
minutes, joined by community leaders and a swarm of cameras that mostly blocked
his view of boarded row homes and crumbling marble steps. A handful of
residents joined the spectacle, and occasionally broke out in chants of Gray's
name.
The scene provided dramatic visuals of the economic
inequality Sanders has made the center of his campaign, offering a new backdrop
from which to argue for a higher minimum wage, tuition-free public college and
tougher federal regulations of the nation's banking sector.
"Anyone who took the walk that we took around this
neighborhood would not think you're in a wealthy nation," Sanders told
reporters later at the Freddie Gray Empowerment Center in Bolton Hill.
"You would think that you were in a Third World country."
But Sanders' anti-poverty message was largely
overshadowed by his reluctance to discuss the subject on which politicians, the
news media and the public have focused in recent days: terrorism and the
self-declared Islamic State.
Before the news conference began, a campaign spokeswoman
tried to wave reporters off asking Sanders about ISIS, arguing it was
off-topic.
When a reporter ignored the request, Sanders appeared
agitated.
"What about ISIS, guys?" Sanders said. "Of
course I'll talk about ISIS."
Sanders then shifted back almost immediately to domestic
policy.
"But today what we're talking about is a community
in which half of the people don't have jobs," he said. "We're talking
about a community in which there are hundreds of buildings that are
uninhabitable."
Then he ended the news conference.
Gray, 25, died in April after suffering a severe spinal
cord injury in police custody. The protests that followed drew international
attention. On the day he was buried, the city erupted in arson, looting and
riots.
As Sanders toured West Baltimore, the trial of the first
of six police officers charged in Gray's death entered its seventh day in a
downtown courtroom.
Before Sanders arrived in Bolton Hill, a campaign aide
asked a group of about a dozen supporters not to cheer him.
The group, which included a woman who held a large banner
that read "Bernie Sanders for President," obliged; as a result, his
arrival was more somber than a typical campaign appearance.
Sanders began the tour at the CVS at North and
Pennsylvania avenues that burned during the riots. He walked to the corner of
Presbury and North Mount streets, near where Gray was arrested, and looked up
at a large mural of Gray.
Sanders then met with prominent faith leaders in Bolton
Hill.
Residents yelled as Sanders passed by, and some joined
the media throng. One shouted "He's the only candidate without a super
PAC!" — repeating a point Sanders has often made.
Some held signs pointing to long-standing complaints with
the city's public housing: "We deserve safe and livable housing."
"I'm impressed," said Michael Williams, a West
Baltimore man who described himself as a Hillary Clinton fan. "There has
never been a person running for president to come to our neighborhood."
Former Gov. Martin O'Malley, who is also seeking the
Democratic nomination, visited West Baltimore after the riots in late April,
but he had not announced his candidacy at that time.
Sanders, whose home state of Vermont is 95 percent white,
has been reaching out to African-American leaders and activists since members
of the Black Lives Matter movement interrupted a speech he was giving in
Phoenix in July.
Clinton, meanwhile, has received endorsements from
several prominent black leaders in Congress.
Sanders met with faith leaders including the Rev. Jamal
H. Bryant of the Empowerment Temple in Northwest Baltimore. The group discussed
criminal justice reform, education and the lack of services found in many urban
neighborhoods.
"It is very expensive to be poor," Sanders told
the pastors. "I didn't see a decent grocery store around here. So what are
moms feeding their kids?"
Sanders also fielded several questions about interactions
with policy and recidivism.
One pastor, in discussing the militarization of police,
said that his daughter was afraid of law enforcement: "She's freaking
out."
Bryant stressed that the meeting with leaders did not
constitute an endorsement of his candidacy. He said he hoped to meet with other
candidates.
"It was so important for us that the senator did not
just hear statistics and testimony without seeing the face of a community that
is in urgent need of assistance," Bryant said. "This is not just a
Baltimore problem, it is a black America problem."
Longtime civil rights leader Marvin L. "Doc"
Cheatham said that the event's organizers and other leaders made a mistake in
not focusing more attention on neighborhoods west of Fulton Avenue, where Gray
attended school and where the riots also shuttered businesses.
"We're just demanding that they consider all the
communities," Cheatham said. "You need to come west to understand
what happened."
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RELATED
ARTICLE
Note:
No outrage over Bernie Sanders and faux
outrage over Donald Trump
Trump calls Baltimore ‘disgusting ... rodent infested
mess,’ rips Rep. Elijah Cummings over border criticism
By WILBORN P. NOBLES
III | BALTIMORE SUN |JUL 27, 2019 | 10:21 PM
After President Donald Trump attacked U.S. Rep. Elijah
Cummings of Maryland on Saturday as a “brutal bully” and called his 7th
District “disgusting, rat and rodent infested," officials, residents and
political commentators jumped to the defense of the congressman and his
Baltimore home.
Some went so far as to call Trump’s tweets racist as the
president again took to Twitter to vilify his political enemies, using
inflammatory language that some believe stokes the nation’s racial divisions as
he prepares to run for reelection in 2020.
“Elijah Cummings grew up facing racist bullies like Trump
and learned to confront them with qualities unknown to Trump: courage and
integrity. The great people of Baltimore have something Trump craves but will
never have as he degrades the Office of the President: dignity,” U.S. Sen.
Chris Van Hollen of Maryland tweeted.
Trump’s detractors flooded Twitter to support the city
and Cummings. The topic “#WeAreBaltimore”
was trending at No. 1 on Twitter with more than 14,000 tweets by Saturday
evening. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California tweeted that
Cummings is “a champion in the Congress and the country for civil rights and
economic justice." Pelosi, a Baltimore native, also stressed that “we all
reject racist attacks against him and support his steadfast leadership.”
Trump’s opponents for the White House, U.S. Sens. Kamala
Harris and Elizabeth Warren, also unleashed their disdain for the president’s
remarks. “Donald Trump’s tweets are ugly and racist,” Warren tweeted.
It started as many Trump Saturday morning Twitter attacks
do as the president watched a “Fox & Friends” segment in which a Republican
strategist called Cummings’ district the “most dangerous” in America and showed
video of boarded-up rowhouses and trash-strewn alleys in West Baltimore.
The report followed a July 18 congressional hearing
before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that Cummings chairs
looking at conditions at facilities holding children suspected of crossing the
border illegally. Cummings lashed
out during the hearing at Kevin McAleenan, head of the Department
of Homeland Security, for what he described as conditions in which children
were left to defecate on themselves and did not have access to a shower.
