Diehard Activists Keep A Flame Berning

Philadelphia — As Democrats from around the country nominated Hillary for Clinton for president with the help of former rival Bernie Sanders, Bruce Carter was out in the street declaring, ​“Bernie or BUST!”

The Texan father and husband said he would have gone through the motions of voting for Hillary Clinton a few months ago. Instead, he decided to rally fellow black voters behind the banner of a candidate no longer running at an emotional rally at Thomas Paine Plaza Tuesday afternoon, coinciding with Clinton’s formal nomination inside the hall at the Democratic National Convention.

Organized by the self-proclaimed social revolutionary group Revolt Against Plutocracy, the rally featured speeches from a dozen activists, performers, and Sanders coonvention delegates seeking to uphold their progressive candidate’s ideals, even if they felt betrayed (or at least confused) by the Vermont senator’s endorsement of Clinton.

Many of the younger activists on stage and in attendance on Tuesday afternoon called for a wholesale revolution and revolt, not a return to traditional family values and structures. The rapper Kor Element interspersed performances of Sanders-inspired songs like ​“Feel the Bern” and ​“Bernie or Bust” with expositions on a conspiracy led by the Democratic National Convention to coerce Senator Sanders into endorsing Hillary Clinton.

Gary Frazier, a Green Party candidate for city council in Camden, N.J., took the stage soon thereafter and, just a few hours before DNC delegates at the Wells Fargo Center formally nominated Hillary Clinton as their party’s presidential nominee, held forth on the rigged nominating process perpetuated by the party. ​“No longer will we stand for this voter oppression,” he said. ​“Bernie Sanders was the people’s choice. If they beat us fair, then we would be behind the Democratic Party. But you can’t go suppressing votes in California. You can’t go suppressing votes in New York. You can’t go suppressing votes in Nevada.”

One of the most passionate speeches on Tuesday afternoon came from Niko House, 27. For him, supporting Sanders is less about family and more about rejecting a laundry list of Clinton policies that he argued have harmed black and brown people at home and abroad — including foreign policy decisions in the Middle East.

“I would prefer Trump over Hillary Clinton,” he said, referring to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. ​“If people are worried about Trump, they don’t know about Hillary Clinton … I think if you’re scared about what Trump might do, you should be terrified about what Hillary Clinton has already done.”

A young professional in real estate and marketing, House is seeking to convince other black people to join him in ​“the revolution.” Eager to move past Sanders’s recent endorsement of Hillary Clinton and looking to stress the long-term impact of the senator’s campaign, House declared, ​“Every single revolution, every single major event in history has shown that equality wins. And that is what our victory should be measured by. Despite what happens today at the convention, despite what happens later this week, we have more politically educated people in this country than we have ever had.”

He is registered Independent, and voted for current President Barack Obama in the last election.

He and other black Sanders supporters said they’re interested in getting substantive solutions to issues such as police brutality and poverty that disproportionately affect their communities — instead of empty pandering from politicians. For some, that means loyalty to Sanders till the bitter end, and beyond, even after he has ended his candidacy to embrace Clinton’s.

House offered an alternative take on Sanders supporters’ reaction to Sanders’ appearance Monday night at the convention. Much coverage focused on Sanders supporters booing him for asking them to unify around Clinton. Instead, House noted people ​“crying,” for once ​“unified behind one presence and idea.”

Not Resonating In Primary Polls

During the winter and spring primaries, Sanders’ campaign was criticized for doing a poor job reaching out to black voters, who supported Clinton in large numbers. Even though he brought young black people onto his campaign to help him figure out how to intersect his economic justice platform with issues of racial justice, Clinton won the vast majority of black votes at the primary polls.

Bruce Carter conceded that Sanders’ outreach to the ​“hood” was an ​“epic failure.” But his anti-corporate-money, free-college policies would help those communities the most. He doesn’t want the Democratic Party to ​“pimp black people for their vote.”

He found out about Sanders through his daughter, who is 17. During the Texas primary in early March, she asked him who he was planning on voting for. No one, he responded. ​“I was just really tired of the political nothing.” (Clinton won that primary by a landslide, at 65 percent to Sanders’ 33 percent.)

She said, “‘If I could vote, I’d vote for Bernie Sanders.’” His immediate response: Who’s that?

He did his research, read about Sanders’ history in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, and about Clinton’s support for a crime bill in the 90s that disproportionately imprisoned black men. That history led him to distance himself from the Democratic party. ​“It hasn’t been the party for the black people previously as we had thought,” he said.

“You should not be a slave to any political party. You should look at the issues and you should basically negotiate,” he said.

That liberation, for Carter, meant putting his money toward buying a van with Bernie’s face and the words ​“Black Men for Bernie” emblazoned on the side. He started a social media campaign that has drawn tens of thousands of followers.

Bruce Carter said his support for Sanders is tied up with traditional family values, with progressive politics seen as the most likely way to make sure black men are out of the prison system and able to lead stable families.

“If we want to see families restored, we have to make sure that the one who can stand up against the most, which should be the man, is in a position to have that voice,” he said. ​“So if you’re having children and you can’t feed them…you lose the respect of those who you need the most, which is your family, your children, your loved ones.”

Black women will then be able to ​“trust black men in their leading positions” and fall in line, he said.

“But at the end of the day, I’m Bernie or bust,” House said as he wrapped up his speech at Tuesday’s event. ​“And if the DNC decides that [Bernie Sanders] is not the man who can unite the party or unite this country, then fuck it, I’m bust.”