OPINION:
Presidential candidate Bernard Sanders was ironically booed off a stage last week by Black Lives Matter activists (“Black Lives Matter protesters shut down Bernie Sanders rally in Seattle,” Web, Aug. 9). I say ironically because Mr. Sanders has a record of fighting for civil rights causes for over 50 years. In 1962 he was arrested for protesting segregation in Chicago schools. In 1963 he participated in the March on Washington, the event at which Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech.
In a 1991 talk to Congress Mr. Sanders said, “My friends, we have the highest percentage of people in jail per capital of any nation on Earth. … Let’s demand that every man, woman and child in this country have a decent opportunity and a decent standard of living. Let’s not keep putting more people into jail and disproportionally punishing blacks.”
Mr. Sanders voted against cutting off prisoners from federal education funds. In 2006 he achieved a 97-percent rating from the NAACP. He has repeatedly condemned police during over the course of the Black Lives Matter movement.
It seems protesters see Mr. Sanders as coming from a state with a very small percentage of minorities and only see his skin color. If the people who booed him off the podium last Saturday has looked past the color of his skin they just might discover that they have found the candidate who, more than any other, knows that black live matter.
MARK KERTZMAN
Cambridge, Mass.
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