Bernie Sanders sat down on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day with Dr. Cornel West, rapper and activist Killer Mike, and Nina Turner, the former minority whip for the Ohio Senate, to discuss Martin Luther King, Jr.’s legacy. The four discussed his life, his legacy, and the effects he had on the struggles still happening today. Several times the discussion comes back to how Dr. King’s legacy is frequently sanitized, obscuring how truly radical and outspoken his views were. Bernie sanders reflected on Dr. King’s path and how his aims expanded far beyond racial justice alone in the months leading to his death. “This is what courage is about. He said, ‘Enough.’ If he was going to be consistent with his own inner soul, he had to ask other questions. And the questions he asked, he says, I’m a man of nonviolence, but we’re living in a time of Vietnam War.” He then links Dr. King’s struggle against Vietnam and civil rights to his Poor People’s Campaign, a grassroots movement that fought for economic rights and against income inequality. Dr. Cornel West echoed this sentiment, explicitly linking this to Sander’s campaign. “I was sitting in church today, Mother Emanuel Church, and we were reading the words of Martin Luther King, Jr.,” said West. “And I said to myself, ‘This is what the Sanders campaign is about. This is what it’s about. It’s about the poor, working people. It’s about keeping track of the weak and the vulnerable. It’s about mustering the courage to tell the truth about Wall Street, about wealth inequality.”
Source: Bernie Sanders Reflects on Dr. King’s Legacy with Cornel West, Killer Mike, and Nina Turner
The Spiral Turns 