Longtime entertainer and civil rights activist Harry Belafonte endorsed Democratic presidential
“I would suggest to those of you who have not yet made up your minds, or maybe even some of you who have made up your minds, to maybe consider and reconsider what it is that Bernie Sanders offers,” Belafonte said in a video released by the Sanders campaign. “He offers us a chance to declare unequivocally that there is a group of citizens who have a deep caring for where are nation goes and what it does in the process of going.”
Belafonte, who was close with Martin Luther King Jr. and has previously made such controversial suggestions as imprisoning President Obama’s opponents for “violating the American desire,” said Sanders represents “opportunity,” “a moral imperative” and is able to “turn this ship of state called America around and place it on a new course.”
The endorsement comes hours after the Congressional Black Caucus Political Action Committee announced its support for Sanders’ opponent, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
“As someone who consistently worked with the Congressional Black Caucus as a U.S. senator from New York, [Clinton] supported legislation to ban racial profiling, prosecute hate crimes, and eliminate racial disparities in the healthcare system,” the PAC said Thursday in a statement. “And she stood with us on consistently voting to raise the minimum wage, championing the Paycheck Fairness Act, and helping minority-owned small businesses.”
Clinton and Sanders will both participate in the sixth Democratic debate Thursday evening in Milwaukee before making their way to South Carolina, which is set to hold its primary on Feb. 20. After winning big in New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary, Sanders faces an uphill battle in the Palmetto State, where African-Americans make up a significant portion of the Democratic electorate.
