Some of Sanders’ Democratic Party adversaries have claimed that the Senator’s history of principled stands has been short on racial equality, a charge that has required those opponents to claim that photos of Sanders being arrested at civil rights demonstrations are actually photos of someone else.
The Chicago Tribune has dug through its archives for the original negatives of mass arrests from the era, revealing several exposures that clearly show the Senator as a young man, being dragged away by police at a 1963 demonstration in Chicago’s Englewood. It’s just one of many records of Sanders’ long-term commitment to racial equality and civil rights, including court records stemming from the arrest, which name him as the arrested party.
The issue has picked up steam as the presidential primaries have moved into southern states with large black communities, where Hillary Clinton expects to pick up more votes, despite the endorsement of her husband, whose dismal record on racial equality, including his disastrous criminal just reforms and welfare reforms, which subjected poor and African-American people to levels of discrimination, incarceration and deprivation at rates unheard of in the developed world.
Sanders enrolled at the University of Chicago on Oct. 3, 1960, and graduated in June 1964 with a bachelor of arts degree in political science, said Jeremy Manier, a university spokesman.
Sanders attended Brooklyn College before coming to the U. of C., Manier said.At the University of Chicago, he was a leader of the Congress of Racial Equality, a major civil rights group. News accounts from the time had Sanders leading protests over racial inequality.
Arrest photo of young activist Bernie Sanders emerges from Tribune archives
[Katherine Skiba/Chicago Tribune]
(Photo: thumbnail of a 1963 photo taken by Tom Kinahan for the Chicago Tribune)