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The appearance of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in Portland on Sunday night didn't just set campaign attendance records. It also marked the start of an urgent effort to fix the Democratic presidential candidate's foundering message on race.
As WW reported Sunday, Sanders' visit to Seattle was interrupted by Black Lives Matter protesters, who demanded he add a racial justice platform to his campaign.
Sanders did so. And his Portland speech was kicked off by Symone Sanders, an African-American woman promoted to become his spokeswoman in the aftermath of the Seattle controversy.
She warned the 19,000 people in the Moda Center that the candidate might experience another "disruption," and coached them in a chant in case that happened: "We stand together."
In today's Washington Post, David Weigel takes a detailed look at Symone Sanders' daunting task in Portland, and the strategies she used to defuse protesters and link Sanders' message to racial justice.
UPDATE, 10:15 am: The Portland Mercury reported this morning that Bernie Sanders and Symone Sanders also met with six Don't Shoot Portland activists after the Moda Center rally, according to a post by organizer Marcus Cooper on Facebook.
Cooper says the protesters—including Don't Shoot Portland leader Teressa Raiford, hip-hop artist Glenn Waco, and Jonah Majure, who recently chained himself by the neck to a railroad bridge to protest Shell Oil—told Sanders he needed to address local issues of racial injustice, city by city.
"We reminded him that going from city to city and not discussing what the cities are facing but yet using your platform to discuss about those other issues is equivalent to silencing their screams," Cooper writes. "Hence why he may keep getting interrupted."
WWeek 2015