Local rapper Killer Mike endorsed Bernie Sanders for president at the Vermont senator’s Atlanta, Ga. rally Monday night.
“I have said in many raps I don’t church or the government, a Democrat or Republican, a pope or a bishop or those other men,” Killer Mike rapped. “After spending five hours tonight, five hours with someone who spent the last 50 years fighting for your rights and mine, I am very proud tonight of [Bernie Sanders].”
Sanders has struggled to connect with minority voters during his campaign, despite his 1960s civil rights activism.
“I know I’m preaching to the choir tonight, I know there is not a lot of dissent out there,” Killer Mike said to the predominantly African-American crowd. “But I’m telling you to stay encouraged, stay motivated, stay confronting bullshit at every turn with you wherever you go but you take. … Bernie Sanders there, and you make sure they are on fire because they felt the Bern!”
Sanders said in his speech that the legacy of Martin Luther King inspired his campaign. Prior to the event, Sanders dined at a local Atlanta restaurant with Killer Mike and then visited King’s burial site. Bernice King, the Kings’ youngest daughter, led Sanders through the tour of the King Center, which the presidential candidate called “an inspiration.”
The democratic socialist applauded Dr. King for his emphasis not only on racial inequalities but economic inequalities, stating that “justice in America was more than civil rights it was economic rights as well.”
“Wait until you’re too busy to vote or you say I just don’t care about the political process, you’re not only turning your back on Dr. King but on many men and women who fought and died to protect democracy,” Sanders said.
Sanders concluded by reminding supporters, “We don’t make the change that we have to unless millions of people get involved in the political process, what I call the political revolution!”
