2016 Postmortem

Last edited Sat Jan 14, 2017, 11:20 AM - Edit history (1)

The Lewis/ Sanders controversery left a bad taste in the mouths of a lot of Sanders supporters.

I mean no negativity towards the honorable Congressman Lewis, I'm just mentioning some of the details.

At the heart of the issue was the facts that Bernie was president of the campus chapter of the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE) at the University of Chicago during the early 60's and he was involved in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), of which John Lewis was chairman. As we know. Bernie was involved in numerous civil right activities in Chicago and was even arrested for his efforts.

What rankled some feathers was that in Congressman Lewis's endorsement of Hillary with and for the CBC, which btw was given from DNC head quarters on Capital Hill, he claimed that he never met Sanders during that period (which I don't question) and that (implied) he had met both Bill and Hillary.during that period. A statement that he, at a later date, walked back. He never officially met Bill until 1991 and while its ancient history snd irrelevent, Hillary was a Goldwater girl in 1964. The Congressman did say that he had heard of theit efforts during the 70's and 80's.
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Here is an article about that endorsement that even has a video of Congressman Lewis making his statement.

http://m.motherjones.com/mojo/2016/02/john-lewis-bernie-sanders-civil-rights.

Here is another link (please pardon the source but I'm on my cellphone the facts are accurate ) that have Congressman Lewis, at a later date clarifying his remarks that he made at tbe time if the endorsement

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/13/john-lewis-congressional-black-caucus-bernie-sanders-civil-rights-movement

So couple this with this with the whole Jonathon Capehart "that is not Bernie Sanders in the photograph" saga that seems to be well detailed here
https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2016/02/the-jonathan-capehart-saga-or-why-progressives-hav.html

And you might understand why some Sanders supporters were very pissed off about these efforts to erase Bernies involvement in the Civil Rights movement.