Bernie Sanders Courts Support in a Wary, Struggling Baltimore

By Alice Ollstein, ThinkProgress

09 December 15

ntil Tuesday, 49-year-old Mike Williams had never seen a presidential candidate visit Sandtown-Winchester — the impoverished Baltimore neighborhood where police killed 25-year-old Freddie Gray this past April. As Democratic hopeful Bernie Sanders passed by, surrounded by local African American pastors and tailed by dozens of reporters, Williams told ThinkProgress he was impressed.

“I have never, ever seen a person running for president come through here. Not one time,” he said. “At first, I wondered if he is just trying to get the black vote. But I did some research and found out he fought a lot for civil rights, and even marched at one time with Martin Luther King. I never knew that. And in his speeches, he says, ‘Yes, black lives do matter.'”

Williams, a neighbor and friend of Freddie Gray, said he wanted Sanders to see the exact spot where the young man suffered a fatal spine injury in police custody. “That was some foul stuff they did to my man,” he said. “But I was always taught that everything happens for a reason. So it’s sad he had such a short life but the good side is that he made a big impact, not only in Baltimore but all over the country.”

Protests over the police killings of Gray and others across the country has also left its mark on the presidential race, including Sanders’ campaign. After having his speeches interrupted by Black Lives Matter demonstrators in multiple states, Sanders released a comprehensive racial justice platform covering everything from police brutality to voter suppression. He also met with the mother of Sandra Bland — who died in a jail cell in Texas — and since then has repeatedly invoked her memory in calling for police reform. Yet the senator from the overwhelmingly white state of Vermont has struggled to connect with voters of colors, and trails rival Hillary Clinton in polls of African Americans.

On a cold Tuesday morning, Sanders followed some of Baltimore’s most influential black clergy to the corner where Freddie Gray was loaded into a police van, marked by a pile of sagging balloons, weathered teddy bears, and written messages for Gray. He saw the Gilmore public housing complex, where residents say they were forced to trade sexual favors for basic maintenance. He saw the surrounding streets, where nearly every other house and storefront was boarded up. He saw a mural the community had made with a larger-than-life depiction of Gray’s face and Baltimore residents marching in the streets for justice.

Pausing before the mural, Sanders said he found the depth of poverty he witnessed “stunning.”

“We are less than an hour away from the White House and the United States Congress,” he said. “It is stunning to understand that we are the wealthiest country in the history of the world, and every year we are seeing more and more millionaires and billionaires, but in communities like this, we are seeing kids dropping out of school, living in dilapidated housing. It is time to transform our national priorities.”

Like Williams, other local residents recognized the man challenging Hillary Clinton for the 2016 nomination.

“Hey, that’s Bernie Sanders, he doesn’t have a Super PAC,” called out one man standing in front of the burned, hollowed-out shell where a CVS once stood.

Some residents urged Sanders to “beat Donald Trump,” while others used the rare visit from a presidential candidate to bring attention to the ongoing trial of the police officers who killed Gray. “All night, all day, we’re gonna fight for Freddie Gray,” they chanted as Sanders passed by a block where the majority of homes were boarded up. “We want jobs. Where are the jobs?”

One young woman shouted at Sanders as he passed: “Even when you’re gone we’re still going to be fighting. What are you going to do to end police brutality? We want action.”

Rev. Dr. Jamal Bryant, who led the tour, told ThinkProgress it was important for Sanders to hear directly from these residents and see the conditions they live in firsthand. “These are intelligent voters. Just because they’re poor doesn’t mean they’re uninformed. It did my heart good to see these are not people giving up on life. They’re hungry for an opportunity.”

Bryant, the reverend at Baltimore’s Empowerment Temple AME Church said he felt the roughly half-hour tour was a crucial experience for the famously wonky lawmaker. “I know the senator knows numbers and statistics, but I wanted him to see this poverty firsthand. And he was blown away by it.”

After the walking tour, at a nearby community center, Sanders reflected on the difference between Gray’s neighborhood and his own back in Burlington, Vermont.

“A few blocks from where Jane and I live, there’s a very nice grocery store. We buy good quality food at a reasonable price. You don’t have that here. The prices people in this community are paying are substantially higher. And I can put my money in a bank, where I earn interest. I can cash a check without paying 15, 20 or 50 percent. There aren’t any banks in this community. So it seems like it’s very expensive to be poor.”

The data backs up Sanders’ observation. A report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture found that stores in lower-income neighborhoods charge higher prices for food, driving families to purchase lower quality items. Food purchased at convenience and corner stores — which are more common in poor neighborhoods — can be notes the scarcity of banks in neighborhoods like Sandtown is a major factor that exacerbates poverty. Without a secure bank account, the poor are less able to “manage risk and absorb financial shocks.”

Despite expressing admiration for his economic and criminal justice reform proposals, the 15 African American pastors who met with Sanders did not endorse him. They told reporters the meeting was just the beginning of a relationship and talks with other presidential candidates — beginning with Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) — are scheduled in the coming weeks.

Rev. Donte Hickman, who leads the Southern Baptist Church in East Baltimore, told ThinkProgress following the meeting that he found Sanders “empathetic” and “very impressive.”

“I got the sense that he feels for the disfranchised and disadvantaged and is working to address our issues,” he said. “We’ve got blocks and blocks of blight. We have food deserts. We have liquor stores on every corner. We have blue collar jobs leaving town.”

Hickman, who grew up in poverty in Baltimore and overcame a drug addiction before joining the ministry, says he and the other pastors “grilled” Sanders on how he would address police militarization, create economic opportunities in poor neighborhoods, and tackle the problem of mass incarceration. “It wasn’t volatile, but we weren’t being pansies either,” he told ThinkProgress. “I’m not sure the senator knew what he was getting into.”