Bernie Sanders pitched his message on income inequality as the “moral issue of our time” to a mostly African-American group Friday in South Carolina as part of his effort to attract black voters.
Speaking to a group of community leaders in a Greenville church, Sanders highlighted the need to reform the criminal justice system and decried the Charleston shooting that claimed nine African-American lives in June, according to the New York Times.
Despite his history of support for civil rights, Sanders has repeatedly clashed with activists from the Black Lives Matter movement, most notably at the Netroots conference in July.
Strategists say he will need to pick up support among African-American voters to have a chance against Hillary Clinton in the contest for the Democratic nomination.
The Vermont Democrat has spent time in South Carolina, one of the early primary states, building such support and spreading his message of income equality.
Sanders has run to the left of Clinton on a number of issues and has surpassed predictions of the level of support he could garner in a race against Clinton.
