Atlanta Gets Bernie to Smile - with Pictures!

Atlanta wanted Bernie to smile — we wouldn’t take no for an answer.  And we were richly rewarded….

It was a bit of a surprise Sunday when I received an email saying that Bernie was swinging through Atlanta in two days with a stop at Morehouse College.  A quick search showed the venue held 6,000 so I made plans to arrive before the doors opened. 

When I got there I thought the line was big (five people deep and about two football fields long), but it turns out the line was just forming.  People continued streaming past me for a good hour.  Sanders' volunteers walked down the line checking people in and signing up people to volunteer. 

Signing up — 2 volunteers becomes 4. Forbes Arena — Morehouse College — Bernie Sanders 2016 Atlanta Rally

Before we go any further, I’m going to level with you.  This was supposed to be a liveblog, but I couldn’t get DK5 to work on my phone.  Then I was going to give you the whole “Dan Goes to a Political Rally” full-detail post (which I kind of started above).  But rather than give you the play-by-play I want to highlight one particular part of Bernie’s speech.  And then I’ll give you irrefutable proof that Bernie does smile.

Here’s a link to the full speech:

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Before we get to Bernie, I want to draw attention to two people.  The first is Danny Glover, Sander’s National HBCU Outreach Director.  He really fired up the crowd and you can see him at 5:22.

Danny Glover — Bernie Sanders’ National HBCU Outreach Director

Yes, Killer Mike was there (and I’ll put a link to part of his previous interview with Sanders below) but the other person I really want to mention is Justin Bamberg, SC State House Representative.  You can see him at 41:45 (camera takes a minute to refocus on the podium):

Justin Bamberg — SC State House Rep

Bamberg starts out:

Now, for those of you who may not know, my name is Justin Bamberg, I’m a state representative from South Carolina, and I’m also one of the lawyers that represented the family of Walter Scott.  And I stand before you today as a die hard Bernie Sanders supporter, but the fact of the matter is I wasn’t always that way.  You see, at the end of last year I came out and I endorsed publicly, uh, Ms. Clinton.

Now before you all start throwing stuff, hear me out, because there’s a point behind this.  You see, in the beginning I never really gave Bernie Sanders the time of day.  I looked at him like, y’know I was a young guy from South Carolina.  I never met anyone from Vermont.  

But then, people started telling me, “Hey Rep,” you see, where I’m from they call me “The Peoples’ Rep.”  They said, “Hey Rep,” take a look at Bernie Sanders, so what I started to do, I started to open my eyes, I started to open my ears.  And I started to listen to the things that Bernie Sanders was talking about.  Racial justice.  Social justice.  And economic justice.

And one of the things that I noticed about Bernie Sanders that I really loved is that, I noticed that he wasn’t just saying these things as a candidate running for president, these are things that he had been saying for years and years and years and years and years.

And now on to Bernie…  Flip ahead to 1:24:17.  By this point Bernie was deep in his speech.  The reason I’m highlighting this specifically is because up to this point, he responded in general to the crowd with the typical pauses for cheering or whatever, but there was no indication that he could hear individual comments from the audience.  (The acoustics in the building were horrible.)  There was a guy behind me (back corner of the stands) who once in a while would yell “That ain’t right!” when Bernie would highlight an injustice.  He did it three or four times and honestly, it was kind of amusing.  But he did it one last time when Bernie was talking about Flint, MI and Bernie didn’t miss a beat.  He didn’t even look over to our side of the arena when he responded:

(Grrr, the camera operator pans away from Bernie right before the guy yells.  And that was right before I turned my phone back on.  If you find it on another video please tell me in the comments.)

Bernie: Yesterday I had a meeting which was one of the most difficult and distressing meetings that I’ve ever had in my life, and I’ve had many difficult meetings.  This meeting was with seven or eight people from Flint, Michigan.  What they told me in terms of what is going on in Flint today, made me shudder.  It was incomprehensible to me that what they describe was going on in the United States of America in the year two thousand and sixteen.  Beyond belief.

A woman, [unintel] and I want you to put yourself in this mother’s place. She has a daughter I believe around 9 years of age, kid was a bright child doing well in school.  Over a period of several years, she has seen that child, that bright child’s intellectual development deteriorate, deteriorate and deteriorate.

Audience member:  That ain’t right!

Bernie: That’s more than “that ain’t right” that is, that is, so disgraceful, so horrible, that we are poisoning our children in America in 2016 is beyond comprehension. 

Now people tell me, they say Bernie, you know you wanna invest in the infrastructure, you wanna invest in roads, and bridges and water systems, it is an expensive proposition, and I say, if we can rebuild infrastructure in Iraq and Afghanistan, 

Audience: *Cheer*

Bernie: we damn well can rebuild Flint Michigan and other communities that are now disintegrating. 

Audience: *Cheer*

Bernie: You know, it’s a funny thing, I’m in the senate so I hear this every day, and people say, you know, you gotta be careful about how much money we can’t afford to put that much into flint we can’t put that much into education, can’t put that much into healthcare, but I want all of you to remember, that when Congress decided to spend trillions of dollars going to war in Iraq, no body worried about the money.

Audience: *Cheer*  Bernie! Bernie! Bernie!

He tries to start back up:

Bernie: My republican colleagues…

Audience: Bernie! Bernie! Bernie! 

But we don’t let him.  And then we catch a brief smile :)

Bernie Smiles (briefly)

Ok, on to a few more pictures.  The place seats 6,000.  Pretty sure we hit that.

Bernie takes the stage #Bernie2016 #Bernie2016 at Morehouse College in February 2016 Volunteers for #Bernie2016 at Morehouse College in Atlanta, GA Cameras!  #Bernie2016 #Bernie2016 at Morehouse College in Atlanta GA

Then he worked the crowd and really smiled:

#Bernie2016 at Morehouse College in Atlanta GA #Bernie2016 #Bernie2016 #Bernie2016 #Bernie2016

Before I let you go….  a quick shout out to the Morehouse Band:

#Bernie2016 Morehouse College Band

and Omega Psi Phi:

#Bernie2016 Omega Psi Phi at Morehouse College

and my favorite Bernie video ever:

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TOGETHER from HUMAN on Vimeo.

And here is a 3.5 min excerpt from Killer Mike’s interview with Bernie where he talks about MLK and bringing people together.  Click through to youtube for the whole 6 part interview (Google “Talking Shop w/Bernie Sanders”), but this particular section is 8:50-12:21 of part 3:

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Please take a moment to donate or volunteer for Bernie Sanders #Bernie2016