We were a Congress of Racial Equality student group (we called ourselves Core) – Bernie Sanders was our president – and we were occupying the offices of George Beadle, the university’s president. I’m sitting on the floor, on his left, in a pale sweater with a black bob. We were protesting against the segregation of some of the university’s private housing in Chicago. We stayed for several days, sleeping on the floor, until it changed its policy. Which it did.
These were early days in the civil rights movement, and this was one of the first college sit-ins. We were amazingly well-behaved. I was studying history, and read Aristotle to while away the hours. During the day, I baked and sold brownies at the student union for the Turn Toward Peace organisation, which was raising money to send buses to Washington for a rally. When I found time for my schoolwork, who knows.
I grew up in New York, a “red diaper baby”, so-called because my parents were lefties. I picked Chicago because it had a politically active student body and was intellectual, too. Bernie was a year above me. We moved in different circles; my friends and I were politically to his left. If you’d told me he would run for president one day, I’d have said, “Oh yeah, right!” He was a swell guy, a nice Jewish boy from Brooklyn, but he wasn’t terribly charismatic. One of his strengths, though, was his ability to work with a wide group of people, even those he didn’t agree with.
There was controversy earlier this year as to whether this is Bernie Sanders addressing the floor or another student leader, Bruce Rappaport. This photo featured in Bernie’s campaign video for his Democratic nomination, even though a year earlier four Chicago alumni had come forward to say it wasn’t him. The photographer, Danny Lyon – himself a big name in the civil rights movement – later confirmed it was Bernie, even if his campaign team says they’re “not 100% sure”. But Rappaport’s former wife is sure it’s Rappaport. I think it suits Bernie’s detractors to try to undercut his civil rights credentials.
I first saw this image on Facebook earlier this year, and thought, “That sure looks like me.” I sent it to several friends and they all said, “Of course it’s you – you haven’t changed a bit.”
After this, I stayed active in the peace movement. I marched into Montgomery in 1965, but missed the March on Washington in August 1963 because I went to Europe and fell in love with it, Britain especially, even though the food was inedible. After I left Chicago, I did a master’s, got married, had kids, then went to law school in the early 70s. I’ve now taught law for 35 years, with a break for a PhD. I retired to the UK, but unretired a few years ago, because I was bored. I now teach part-time at Southampton University, and spend a lot of time with my grandsons.
I’ve followed Bernie’s career and backed him in the primaries. His supporters were so passionate, but there weren’t enough of them. Even so, he did better than anyone could have expected. And his success has had a positive effect: the Democrats are now making concessions to the kinds of thingshe was fighting for.
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