Bernie Sanders Leads 1962 Sit-in

Posted by dektol on January 30, 2016 · 11 Comments 

In 1962  I was the student photographer at the University of Chicago, making pictures for the yearbook, the Alumni Magazine and the student paper, The Maroon. By the summer of 1962 I had taken my camera  into the deep South, and become the first photographer for SNCC.

In January of 1962,  at the University of Chicago, there was a sit-in inside the administration building protesting discrimination against blacks in university owned housing. I went to it with a CORE activist and friend. The sit in was in a crowded hallway, blocking the entrance to the office of Dr. George Beadle, the chancellor.

 

I took the photograph of Bernie Sanders speaking to his fellow CORE members at that sit-in. Bob McNamara, a close friend and CORE activist, is in the very corner next to me in the picture. Across the room from me is another campus photographer named Wexler, who taught me how to develop film. I photographed Bernie a second time after he got a haircut, as he appeared next to the noble laureate and chancellor Dr. George Beadle. Time Magazine is now claiming it is not Bernie in the picture but someone else. It is Bernie, and it is proof of his very early dedication to justice for African Americans. The CORE sit-in that Bernie helped lead was the first civil rights sit-in to take place in  the North.

 

Filed under Media, Politics · Tagged with Bernie, Bernie Sanders, Bernie Sanders for President, Bernie Sit-in, CORE, CORE Sit-in, Dr. George Beadle, Photograph of Bernie, University of Chicago