Bernie Sanders visits Baltimore for round table, tour of Freddie Gray's neighborhood.

[leftcoastmountains]

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"We are the wealthiest country in the history of the world and every year we're seeing more and more millionaires and more and more billionaires, but in communities like this what we're seeing is kids dropping out of schools, being in bad schools, being in dilapidated housing," Sanders said. "It's time to transform our national priorities; invest in our kids, invest in affordable housing, invest in education, invest in jobs. Fifty-one percent of young African American kids in this country are unemployed or under employed. That is a national tragedy and that has got to change. It's got to change for human reasons --- we don't want to see lives destroyed --- but even if you're a conservative it's got to change for fiscal reasons. You save money when you create jobs and education rather than locking people up. It's a very expensive proposition to be locking people up. Better to invest in housing, jobs and education."

http://foxbaltimore.com/news/local/bernie-sanders-visits-baltimore-for-round-table-tour-of-sandtown-winchester

[Enthusiast]

1. Kicked and recommended!

[eridani]

2. Bernie Sanders Courts Support in a Wary, Struggling Baltimore

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/33944-bernie-sanders-courts-support-in-a-wary-struggling-baltimore

Util 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.