On August 5, 1963, Jerry Temaner was a young filmmaker on location of the growing protest movement emerging in Chicago. On the South Side of the city, in a community called Englewood, black families were coming together to boycott the proposed "construction" of a new school on the corner of 73rd & Lowe. The plan, which sounds just as ridiculous today as it likely did 53 years ago, was to build the entire school out of a collection of mobile homes called Willis Wagons. As expected, families in the community weren't having it and the protests on the proposed site where the mobile homes would be placed were fierce. Of course, nobody there had any idea that one of the young men in their midst, protesting the racism among schools and housing on the South Side, was a man who would one day run for President, Bernie Sanders.

As a student at the nearby University of Chicago, Sanders served as chapter president of the Congress for Racial Equality at the university. A Chicago Tribune press clipping from August of 1963 shows that during a protest, right there on the corner where the mobile homes were being placed, Bernie Sanders was charged with resisting arrest and taken to jail. This isn't conjecture or revisionist history. Bernie Sanders was a student activist and was arrested during this protest.

At a time where surrogates for Hillary Clinton seem to be questioning whether or not Sanders was active in the Civil Rights Movement or ever even cared about issues that matter to black folk, we continue to see more and more evidence that the very identity of Senator Sanders was forged in the fire of activism. Not one other presidential candidate can say such a thing. Recently, the revered photographer Danny Lyon came forward to confirm that disputed photos of Bernie Sanders during the movement absolutely were of Sanders. Lyon also released additional photos never seen until now. On his own blog, Lyon says:

"In 1962 and the spring of 1963 I was the student photographer at the University of Chicago, making pictures for the yearbook, the Alumni Magazine and the student paper, The Maroon. By the summer of 1962 I had taken my camera into the deep South, and become the first photographer for SNCC.


cont'

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/king-old-video-shows-bernie-sanders-arrest-article-1.2533704

PRESS RELEASE


Sanders Campaigns in South Carolina, Criminal Justice and Civil Rights TV Ad Set to Air



FEBRUARY 16, 2016





CHARLESTON, S.C. – U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders brought his White House campaign back to South Carolina on Tuesday with two morning stops in Columbia and an afternoon town meeting here where he predicted his come-from-behind campaign will surprise pundits when Palmetto State Democrats go to the polls on Feb. 27.

“On Election Day, I think folks here in South Carolina are going to wake up the next morning and find a very big surprise,” Sanders said to cheers from supporters at the historic Memminger Auditorium.

Earlier Tuesday, Sanders spoke at a prayer breakfast at the historically black Allen University about his proposals on a range of issues from reforming the criminal justice system to creating jobs and raising wages.





Speaking to a mostly-student audience at the University of South Carolina, Sanders detailed proposals for tuition-free public colleges and universities. He also detailed plans to rebuild crumbling roads and bridges with a five-year, $1 trillion investment in infrastructure improvements.

Sanders was introduced at the university by Erica Garner, whose father died when he was choked to death during an arrest two years by New York City police officers. She called Sanders a “fearless public servant that is not afraid to stand against the establishment for the people.”

Erica Garner is featured in a new television ad set to air here in a six-figure ad buy on stations in South Carolina and on national television beginning Wednesday.

The campaign day in South Carolina followed Sanders’ 22-point victory one week ago in New Hampshire and a tie in the Feb. 1 Iowa precinct caucuses.





https://berniesanders.com/press-release/sanders-campaigns-in-south-carolina-criminal-justice-and-civil-rights-tv-ad-set-to-air/

PRESS RELEASE


Sanders Applauds Minneapolis Fed President’s Call to Break Up Too Big To Fail Banks



FEBRUARY 16, 2016


CHARLESTON, S.C. — U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders issued the following statement after Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank President Neel Kashkari, a former Goldman Sachs banker and manager of the government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program, gave a speech calling for “breaking up large banks into smaller, less connected, less important entities”:

“I am delighted that the new president of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve believes that we need to break up too big to fail banks.

“If a bank is too big to fail, it is too big to exist. When it comes to Wall Street reform that must be our bottom line. The risk of another bailout is too great, and the economic and political power of a handful of huge financial institutions is simply too large.

“We need a banking system that is part of the productive economy – making loans at affordable rates to small- and medium-sized businesses so that we can create decent-paying jobs. Wall Street cannot continue to be an island unto itself, gambling trillions in risky financial instruments, making huge profits, assured that, if their schemes fail, the taxpayers will be there to bail them out.”|gave a speech] calling for “breaking up large banks into smaller, less connected, less important entities”:




https://berniesanders.com/press-release/sanders-applauds-minneapolis-fed-presidents-call-to-break-up-too-big-to-fail-banks/

Wall Street’s foreclosure crisis, which began in late 2007 and forced more than 10 million people from their homes, has created a paradoxical problem. Millions of evicted Americans need a safe place to live, even as millions of vacant, bank-owned houses are blighting neighborhoods and spurring a rise in crime. Lucky for us, Wall Street has devised a solution: It’s going to rent these foreclosed houses back to us. In the process, it’s devised a new form of securitization that could cause this whole plan to blow up — again.

Since the buying frenzy began, no company has picked up more houses than the Blackstone Group, the largest private equity firm in the world. Using a subsidiary company, Invitation Homes, Blackstone has grabbed houses at foreclosure auctions, through local brokers, and in bulk purchases directly from banks the same way a regular person might stock up on toilet paper from Costco.

In one move, it bought 1,400 houses in Atlanta in a single day. As of November, Blackstone had spent $7.5 billion to buy 40,000 mostly foreclosed houses across the country. That’s a spending rate of $100 million a week since October 2012. It recently announced plans to take the business international, beginning in foreclosure-ravaged Spain.

http://www.occupy.com/article/revealed-blackstone-group-exploited-foreclosure-crisis-and-seized-homes-cheap

Since spring 2012, just at the time when Blackstone began buying foreclosed homes in bulk, an estimated $88 billion of housing wealth accumulation has gone straight to banks or institutional investors as a result of their residential property holdings, according to an analysis by TomDispatch. And it’s a number that’s likely to just keep growing.

“Institutional investors are siphoning the wealth and the ability for wealth accumulation out of underserved communities,” says Henry Wade, founder of the Arizona Association of Real Estate.

PRESS RELEASE


Incredible Turnout at Rally in Michigan, Sanders Meets Flint Families



FEBRUARY 15, 2016





YPSILANTI, Mich. – Bernie Sanders received a rousing ovation on Monday from a capacity crowd of about 9,400 supporters at Eastern Michigan University’s Convocation Center. “What an incredible turnout,” Sanders said.

The Democratic Party presidential candidate laid out detailed proposals to create jobs, make college affordable, reform the country’s criminal justice system and address climate change.

He also spoke about the need to repair the nation’s crumbling roads, bridges, railroads and public water systems. He has introduced legislation in the U.S. Senate to invest $1 trillion in infrastructure upgrades.



Sanders addressed the rally after a private meeting with families from Flint, Michigan, which is reeling from a public health emergency resulting from lead-tainted tap water.

Sanders recently called for the resignation of Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder for the state’s inadequate response to the public health troubles which have been traced to a 2014 decision to switch the source of the city’s tap water supply to the Flint River. After repeated assurances that the water was safe, Flint residents were warned last fall about lead poisoning concerns.



Sanders and Erin Brockovich wrote a column in Sunday’s Detroit Free Press which called Flint “a wake-up call” to problems affecting public water supplies nationwide. “The situation in Flint is what happens when public officials who, in their reckless zeal to slash government spending, jeopardize the health and well-being of the residents they are entrusted with keeping safe,” they wrote.






https://berniesanders.com/press-release/incredible-turnout-at-rally-in-michigan-sanders-meets-flint-families/