How Did Californie Sanders Contribute To The Civil Rights Movement

Bernie Sanders has a long history for standing up for civil rights as well as minority rights. But he has more recently been recognized for his contribution to the civil rights movement, as a participant in Martin Luther King Jr.’s March on Washington in 1963 and as leader of protests to demand fair housing at the University of Chicago (Wellman). American civil rights activist, Alfred Sharpton once mentioned that if “you were not getting arrested during the 1960s in America, [I] would have to question your leadership around racial justice issues” (Harris). While Sanders was volunteering with the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), Hillary Clinton was volunteering with Barry Goldwater who voted against the Civil Rights Act (Harris). This may not seem relevant anymore, since Sanders is no longer in the running for President; but it is to me. Sanders was an activist who worked towards change throughout his career, but also encouraged a new type of change in the younger generation in the past couple years.
Bernie Sanders was the leader of the
Sanders organized picketers at the restaurant after deciding to keep the pressure on the establishment after the arrest of twelve fellow CORE demonstrators down in North Carolina (Murphey). Also 1962, the police started to call him an “outside agitator” because he had went around putting up flyers explaining police brutality (Jilani). Sanders eventually left his role in the organization; his grades had slipped so much that the dean had told him to take time off of school (Murphey). Despite not being a chairman for CORE, he still continued to participate alongside them. Following this, after the March on Washington in 1963, Sanders was arrested and convicted of resisting arrest after a protest about the segregation in Chicago’s public schools