When Bernie Sanders attended the University of Chicago in the early 1960s, the campus was a bastion of political progressivism — one that nurtured the socialist positions the U.S. senator and presidential candidate now trumpets.
“The U. of C. had a reputation of radicalism during the 1950s. During the Red Scare, a number of U. of C. faculty members were accused of being communists,” said Ray Gadke, a U. of C. librarian. “That was the generation before Bernie was here, but there was still that reputation of being a red school — a radical school — when he was here.”
While some of Sanders’ earliest political activism focused on civil rights issues plaguing black communities, he has stumbled during his presidential campaign when explaining his positions on the civil rights issues of the present. For some activists, Sanders’ past organizing is not sufficient evidence that the Vermont senator best represents issues important in black communities.
Sanders transferred to the U. of C. after a year at Brooklyn College and became involved in the school’s chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality. He graduated in 1964 with a degree in political science and considerable experience in waging grass-roots campaigns.
As president of CORE, he spearheaded sit-ins, pickets and protests related to racial inequality, the most visible of which was two weeks of sit-ins at the office of university President George Beadle over segregationist policies at university-owned apartments in Hyde Park.
“We feel it is an intolerable situation when Negro and white students of the University cannot live together in university owned apartments,” Sanders told the student newspaper, The Maroon, in January 1962.
Former classmates said Sanders was committed to holding the university responsible for its promise to examine racial issues.
“Of the people at these meetings, he was particularly interested in policy questions, like what should the government do about civil rights or nuclear weapons,” said Michael Parker, who participated in some activism with Sanders. “He was talking about solutions, as opposed to just problems.”
Sanders helped set up a system for filing complaints concerning discrimination in university housing. And after the administration backpedaled on promises to hold discussions on policy changes, Sanders set up tables in Mandel Hall where students could submit ideas on how the university could become more inclusive, according to Maroon accounts.
“Bernie was clearly a leader,” said Mike Edelstein, who served on CORE’s executive committee when Sanders was involved. “He was taken seriously. You couldn’t take him for anything else because, like now, his humor is not his foremost trait.”
Considered a long shot for the presidency by political analysts, the self-described Democratic socialist initially focused his campaign on economic inequality.
But a series of cases involving authorities and African-Americans, including the fatal shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and the death of Naperville resident Sandra Bland in a Texas jail after a controversial traffic stop, has put the spotlight on racial issues.
Sanders and other Democratic presidential candidates have been criticized by civil rights advocates, including leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement, who say the candidates have not adequately addressed these issues. In response, Sanders has pointed to his background in the civil rights movement in college, including his participation in the 1963 civil rights march on Washington.
Black Lives Matter protesters interrupted Sanders at a Netroots Nation conference last month, demanding he speak more forcefully about institutional racism. After the confrontation, Sanders became visibly upset, saying “black lives of course matter, and I’ve spent 50 years of my life fighting for civil rights and for dignity. But if you don’t want me to be here, that’s OK.”
Since then, Sanders, who has been interrupted by Black Lives Matter demonstrators at other events, took the issue head-on Aug. 10 in Los Angeles. “There is no president that will fight harder to end institutional racism,” he told the crowd.
DeRay Mckesson, a former teacher who is an organizer in the Black Lives Matter movement, attended his first Sanders speech a few days after the Netroots conference in July and said the candidate showed an authenticity that was appealing. But he said Sanders must reach beyond his past civil rights work to win over the African-American community.
“It was unclear to me how that past work was informing his rhetoric until people pushed him on it,” Mckesson said. “His language is now starting to catch up, and he is plainly talking about how black lives matter.”
In the 1960s, the U. of C. campus was a place where socialists, civil rights advocates and anti-war protesters staked out ground for change. Many students traveled to Mississippi to register voters or wore armbands in protest of President John F. Kennedy’s foreign policy toward Cuba. Lula Mae White, a 1963 U. of C. graduate, became a civil rights leader and was arrested for her participation in the Freedom Rides.
Multiple socialist student groups also existed at the school, and renowned political theorist Hannah Arendt spoke on campus about the conditions needed to spur revolution. In October 1962, David Stark Murray, president of the Socialist Medical Association, talked to students about the fight for socialized medicine — a Sanders platform since his first political post as mayor of Burlington, Vt., in the early 1980s.
In a 1963 letter to The Maroon, Sanders struck some notes similar to his current positions, calling on protesters to hit hard against segregationist policies in Hyde Park and blaming the university for refusing to “discuss the failings of an economic system which, despite the great wealth of the country, does not provide adequate housing for large numbers of people.”
The CORE sit-ins against segregation, which garnered national attention, were tense, and some protesters were arrested, Maroon reports said. Sanders was not among those arrested during the sit-ins, according to the reports.
After weeks of sit-ins, Beadle and the university agreed to form a commission to investigate discrimination and hold community discussions about race.
Sanders and about 40 CORE members also picketed the landlords of a U. of C.-owned building that refused housing to a black man. As picketers left the residence on East 54th Street, people yelled, “Go back to your jungles,” according to an account from The Maroon. That same day, CORE also picketed the Howard Johnson’s restaurant at 87th Street and Cicero Avenue after executives refused to adopt nondiscriminatory policies.
During Sanders’ time at CORE, the group organized a talk on campus by Malcolm X on the subject of “integration or segregation.” Sanders and other CORE members also volunteered for the re-election of Leon Despres, a 5th Ward alderman and champion of open housing policies in Chicago.
While Sanders was frequently quoted in The Maroon and often wrote letters to the editor condemning the administration, he also was a guest writer for a column called The Gadfly. In one column titled “Sex and the Single Girl—Part Two,” he argued that by imposing curfews and room checks for women, the school was regulating the sex lives of students.
“It must be stated in the strongest possible terms that no group of men should be given the power to believe that they can regulate one of the most important aspects of human life,” Sanders wrote.
Sanders’ call for curfew reforms was not taken seriously, but the push to end segregation eventually succeeded. After more than a year of protests, The Maroon announced “UC ends housing segregation” on its July 19, 1963, front page.
While critics said Sanders at first appeared defensive or annoyed toward the Black Lives Matters protesters who shut down his speeches, he has since embraced their efforts, rolling out a racial justice platform Aug. 10 that acknowledges disproportionate violence against blacks by law enforcement and calls for reforms in police departments.
Sanders also named a black criminal justice advocate and strong supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement as his national press secretary.
Mckesson, of Black Lives Matter, who said he liked many of the points Sanders made, was not ready to endorse a candidate.
“The time of speaking in coded language is past us,” Mckesson said. “People are looking for candidates to speak clearly, the issue of criminal justice is important in black communities.”
