theintercept--2020-03-09--The Climate Movement Doesn’t Know How to Talk With Union Members About Green Jobs

Jane McAlevey , a senior policy fellow at the University of California Berkeley ’ s Labor Center , argues that the climate and labor movements have not done the hard work required to convince beaten-down U.S. workers that they can have the same quality of life offered by the fossil fuel industry in a clean economy .
Her most recent book , “ A Collective Bargain : Unions , Organizing , and the Fight for Democracy , ” was published in January .
McAlevey spoke to The Intercept about her work ; the interview has been edited for length and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , moderator Chuck Todd quoted a Pennsylvania labor leader who said , “ If we end up with a Democratic candidate that supports a fracking ban , I ’ m going to tell my members that they either don ’ t vote or vote for the other guy.
” “ What do you tell those workers ?
” the moderator asked .
Bernie Sanders responded by referring first to climate scientists ’ dire projections , then added that his policies will create 20 million good-paying jobs .
Elizabeth Warren said that we can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ infrastructure jobs tomorrow , then spoke of fossil fuel donations corrupting politics .
Do you think these answers were sufficient ?
I remember that moment in the debate so well .
They really didn ’ t nail it .
I was hoping that the first things out of their mouths would have been to guarantee that every worker in the fossil fuel economy holds onto the standard they have , as we raise millions more into standards like that , by putting a front-line priority on unionizing the jobs in the clean economy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ started to move all the unionized jobs out of the U.S. As the capitalists are shifting the American dream jobs out of the U.S. , they do a containment strategy .
They create this union-busting consultant industry , and the capitalist class says , “ We ’ re not going to allow the emerging sector , the service sector , to get unionized the way we allowed the manufacturing sector to get unionized.
” So when people talk about , “ Oh we ’ re going to create this next new economy , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ We ’ re going to lose all these good jobs , and we ’ re never going to have a union again , ” because that ’ s the lived experience in this country .
What do you think organizers should be doing right now to make sure a climate-friendly platform can win in a presidential race where Trump will argue that ending fossil fuel investment means lost jobs ?
The candidates themselves and all of their surrogates have to get better at the core message I ’ m describing .
You have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ saying all of the things they ’ re going to say , and then walk people through why it ’ s a lie .
So if I ’ m the candidate on stage , I ’ m going to lead by saying , “ I understand that in the United States the same corporations that have been destroying the planet have collaborated to make it so that most American workers no longer have good , unionized jobs.
” You lead by inoculating , by saying , “ I understand that when I talk @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , it seems really hard to believe for most American workers , for most ordinary people , because it ’ s not their lived experience.
” Lead with that , and then offer a credible plan for how it ’ s going to be different .
You ’ ve said that “ progressive environmentalists have yet to prove they can move from rhetoric to reality about good , unionized green jobs.
” How do we get there ?
Part of having a credible plan to win means I can walk workers through examples @ @ @ @ @ @ @ following six steps , it met the expectation of what they ’ re hoping for .
So part of the problem right now is that there ’ s very few examples of being able to say that .
If I was doing this work , I would have to reach into Denmark to talk about where workers transitioned well .
The New York wind deal got us a hell of a lot closer to having a real example .
Can you talk me through the New York wind deal and why it ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the unions won a far-reaching climate agreement to shift half of New York State ’ s total energy needs to wind power by 2035 .
They did it by moving billions of subsidies away from fossil fuels and into a union jobs guarantee known as a project labor agreement .
When I interviewed a bunch of the key trade union players , I said , “ At the end of the day , how did the environmental movement help get to the victory in the state legislature ?
” And they said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t. ” The context for the opening in New York was Hurricane Sandy .
A lot of workers in the building and construction trades and things that relate to fossil fuels had their families impacted .
And then more workers were called in to do the infrastructure rebuilding and urgent repair work .
Then you had some political vision among trade unionists who said , “ Wow , what led to this Hurricane Sandy crisis ?
” So instead of just running to get rebuilding work , they began to raise broader questions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tried to dialogue with some of the environmental groups , but what the trade union folks found was that the inability of the environmental community to understand how to even talk to the trade unionists was a really huge problem .
So they stopped inviting them .
People from the environmental movement act like people don ’ t understand that there ’ s something wrong when their home is flooded .
They do understand — what they ’ re trying to figure out is a credible plan out of this that doesn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ones sacrificed , because that is the experience of what ’ s been happening .
So in the New York example , they set out to do their own internal trade union-on-trade union education process over a three-year period where they brought in experts that weren ’ t linked to the environmental movement , like scientists .
This ultimately led to a group of unions in New York understanding that the way they could hold their standards and move into a good , cleaner economy was that they had to have the political @ @ @ @ @ @ @ state House in New York to move public subsidies .
The Keep It in the Ground movement has represented one of the most powerful challenges to the fossil fuel industry , halting oil , gas , and coal projects across the U.S .
However , workers are constantly pitted against these fossil fuel opponents .
Do you think it ’ s possible for the Keep It in the Ground movement to overcome this idea that stopping fossil fuel projects is in conflict with workers ’ interests ?
I ’ m all for keeping @ @ @ @ @ @ @ other hand , I have yet to see that when we succeed at stalling something , that the work is being done that helps the constituencies who need to unify and overcome it actually unify and overcome it .
We ’ re in this perpetual game of tension-growing , sides throwing barbs at each other , skirmishes and warfare breaking out .
Part of a way to inoculate with pipeline and construction workers is not just have rhetoric saying there will be a lot of good new jobs .
What ’ s a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be done , that would encompass the same number of jobs that are being proposed by the fossil fuel industry , in every debate that we have ?
And some people say things like , “ It ’ s not our job to figure that out.
” Well , OK , but it is our job to figure it out .
Because we ’ re losing .
You ’ ve noted the success of the youth movement through school strikes .
What other strategies should the climate movement be taking from the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ environmental movement has been doing most of my lifetime , calling it grassroots organizing , is focusing on people who largely already agree with you and trying to get them out in larger numbers .
The other choice means helping new people who are not engaged in the movement at all learn and process , through a political education program , who is to blame for the problems in their lives .
In every union campaign , I have a universe of people who have no shared political understanding of the world .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ right , the worker is going to go through a very profound change .
It ’ s the spade work that has to be done to till the field to grow more people who understand the crisis .
That is the biggest failure of the broader environmental movement .
We ’ re relying on the people that already agree with us and trying to get them out in the streets .
We can ’ t get there with these numbers .
What spaces right now give you the greatest hope , especially looking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ part is that when we ’ re not having a fight between entrenched interests at the national level , I think most people actually care a lot about the climate crisis .
They also care a hell of a lot about what kind of an economy we ’ re going to have and if it ’ s going to enable their family to survive .
I think a younger generation is understanding at a much more fundamental level the deeply integrated nature of all these crises .
The power that it ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ New Deal is the same power it ’ s going to take to win Medicare for All is the same power it ’ s going to take to create new jobs .
We have to build a movement that has enough power to win on any one of these issues that matter to us .
Because right now , we are not winning on any of them .

The 2020 election is the first presidential race with climate at its center. Throughout the Democratic primary, the potential loss of good construction and fossil fuel industry jobs has helped prevent moderate Democratic candidates, including frontrunner Joe Biden, from taking policy positions that would aggressively confront the fossil fuel industry and the climate crisis. Whoever opposes Donald Trump in the general election will face a politics of climate denial built on an empty but alluring promise of job security in the oil, gas, and coal industries.
Photo: Thea Chalmers/Courtesy of Ecco
Jane McAlevey, a senior policy fellow at the University of California Berkeley’s Labor Center, argues that the climate and labor movements have not done the hard work required to convince beaten-down U.S. workers that they can have the same quality of life offered by the fossil fuel industry in a clean economy. Her most recent book, “ A Collective Bargain: Unions, Organizing, and the Fight for Democracy ,” was published in January.
McAlevey spoke to The Intercept about her work; the interview has been edited for length and clarity.
In the Nevada Democratic debate, moderator Chuck Todd quoted a Pennsylvania labor leader who said, “If we end up with a Democratic candidate that supports a fracking ban, I’m going to tell my members that they either don’t vote or vote for the other guy.”
“What do you tell those workers?” the moderator asked. Bernie Sanders responded by referring first to climate scientists’ dire projections, then added that his policies will create 20 million good-paying jobs. Elizabeth Warren said that we can have a Green New Deal and create infrastructure jobs tomorrow, then spoke of fossil fuel donations corrupting politics. Do you think these answers were sufficient?
I remember that moment in the debate so well. They really didn’t nail it. I was hoping that the first things out of their mouths would have been to guarantee that every worker in the fossil fuel economy holds onto the standard they have, as we raise millions more into standards like that, by putting a front-line priority on unionizing the jobs in the clean economy.
In the early 1970s, we started to move all the unionized jobs out of the U.S. As the capitalists are shifting the American dream jobs out of the U.S., they do a containment strategy. They create this union-busting consultant industry, and the capitalist class says, “We’re not going to allow the emerging sector, the service sector, to get unionized the way we allowed the manufacturing sector to get unionized.”
So when people talk about, “Oh we’re going to create this next new economy,” what do workers hear? “We’re going to lose all these good jobs, and we’re never going to have a union again,” because that’s the lived experience in this country.
What do you think organizers should be doing right now to make sure a climate-friendly platform can win in a presidential race where Trump will argue that ending fossil fuel investment means lost jobs?
The candidates themselves and all of their surrogates have to get better at the core message I’m describing. You have to get ahead of your opposition by saying all of the things they’re going to say, and then walk people through why it’s a lie.
So if I’m the candidate on stage, I’m going to lead by saying, “I understand that in the United States the same corporations that have been destroying the planet have collaborated to make it so that most American workers no longer have good, unionized jobs.” You lead by inoculating, by saying, “I understand that when I talk about the transition to a clean economy, it seems really hard to believe for most American workers, for most ordinary people, because it’s not their lived experience.” Lead with that, and then offer a credible plan for how it’s going to be different.
Image: Courtesy of Ecco
Part of having a credible plan to win means I can walk workers through examples of when workers like them took the following six steps, it met the expectation of what they’re hoping for. So part of the problem right now is that there’s very few examples of being able to say that. If I was doing this work, I would have to reach into Denmark to talk about where workers transitioned well. The New York wind deal got us a hell of a lot closer to having a real example.
Can you talk me through the New York wind deal and why it’s so key?
In New York, the unions won a far-reaching climate agreement to shift half of New York State’s total energy needs to wind power by 2035. They did it by moving billions of subsidies away from fossil fuels and into a union jobs guarantee known as a project labor agreement. When I interviewed a bunch of the key trade union players, I said, “At the end of the day, how did the environmental movement help get to the victory in the state legislature?” And they said, “Well, they didn’t.”
The context for the opening in New York was Hurricane Sandy. A lot of workers in the building and construction trades and things that relate to fossil fuels had their families impacted. And then more workers were called in to do the infrastructure rebuilding and urgent repair work.
Then you had some political vision among trade unionists who said, “Wow, what led to this Hurricane Sandy crisis?” So instead of just running to get rebuilding work, they began to raise broader questions. And the initial part was they tried to dialogue with some of the environmental groups, but what the trade union folks found was that the inability of the environmental community to understand how to even talk to the trade unionists was a really huge problem. So they stopped inviting them.
“The power that it’s going to take to win the Green New Deal is the same power it’s going to take to win Medicare for All is the same power it’s going to take to create new jobs.”
People from the environmental movement act like people don’t understand that there’s something wrong when their home is flooded. They do understand — what they’re trying to figure out is a credible plan out of this that doesn’t mean we’re the first ones sacrificed, because that is the experience of what’s been happening.
So in the New York example, they set out to do their own internal trade union-on-trade union education process over a three-year period where they brought in experts that weren’t linked to the environmental movement, like scientists. This ultimately led to a group of unions in New York understanding that the way they could hold their standards and move into a good, cleaner economy was that they had to have the political power to shift the governor and the state House in New York to move public subsidies.
The Keep It in the Ground movement has represented one of the most powerful challenges to the fossil fuel industry, halting oil, gas, and coal projects across the U.S. However, workers are constantly pitted against these fossil fuel opponents. Do you think it’s possible for the Keep It in the Ground movement to overcome this idea that stopping fossil fuel projects is in conflict with workers’ interests?
I’m all for keeping it in the ground. On the other hand, I have yet to see that when we succeed at stalling something, that the work is being done that helps the constituencies who need to unify and overcome it actually unify and overcome it. We’re in this perpetual game of tension-growing, sides throwing barbs at each other, skirmishes and warfare breaking out.
Part of a way to inoculate with pipeline and construction workers is not just have rhetoric saying there will be a lot of good new jobs. What’s a harm-neutral, shovel-ready infrastructure project that needs to be done, that would encompass the same number of jobs that are being proposed by the fossil fuel industry, in every debate that we have? And some people say things like, “It’s not our job to figure that out.” Well, OK, but it is our job to figure it out. Because we’re losing.
Fatima Cucio addresses more than 100 students and other attendees of the Youth Climate Strike action in St. Louis, Mo., on March 15, 2019. Photo: Laurie Skrivan/St. Louis Post-Dispatch via AP
You’ve noted the success of the youth movement through school strikes. What other strategies should the climate movement be taking from the labor movement?
Most of what the environmental movement has been doing most of my lifetime, calling it grassroots organizing, is focusing on people who largely already agree with you and trying to get them out in larger numbers. The other choice means helping new people who are not engaged in the movement at all learn and process, through a political education program, who is to blame for the problems in their lives. In every union campaign, I have a universe of people who have no shared political understanding of the world. If we’re doing our job right, the worker is going to go through a very profound change.
It’s the spade work that has to be done to till the field to grow more people who understand the crisis. That is the biggest failure of the broader environmental movement. We’re relying on the people that already agree with us and trying to get them out in the streets. We can’t get there with these numbers.
What spaces right now give you the greatest hope, especially looking forward into this election?
The hopeful part is that when we’re not having a fight between entrenched interests at the national level, I think most people actually care a lot about the climate crisis. They also care a hell of a lot about what kind of an economy we’re going to have and if it’s going to enable their family to survive.
I think a younger generation is understanding at a much more fundamental level the deeply integrated nature of all these crises. The power that it’s going to take to win the Green New Deal is the same power it’s going to take to win Medicare for All is the same power it’s going to take to create new jobs. We have to build a movement that has enough power to win on any one of these issues that matter to us. Because right now, we are not winning on any of them.


theintercept--2020-03-10--Dispatch From Mississippi: Biden, Sanders, and the Battle to Win Black Voters in the South

and blustery Saturday afternoon , three days before the Mississippi primary , the 36-year-old mayor of Jackson , Chokwe Antar Lumumba , approached a group of men drinking beers around a pickup truck outside the Head Turners Barbershop .
Bearing the seal of his office on a black windbreaker , Lumumba solemnly informed the men they were in violation of city ordinances , triggering peals of laughter all around .
Then Lumumba got down to business .
He was there to generate interest in Bernie Sanders , and skepticism about Joe Biden , the presumed favored candidate of Mississippi Democrats @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from a nearby Baptist Church , where he ’ d launched a Sanders volunteer canvass of the historic black community of Presidential Hill .
While volunteers knocked on screen doors and left flyers on porches , he and another surrogate , the Miami-based organizer and educator Philip Agnew , hit the barbershops of north Jackson .
Lumumba and Agnew tag-teamed what can be a heavy lift in Mississippi : introducing Sanders and his platform , defending his electability , and reducing his opponent Biden to a man , as Agnew likes to say @ @ @ @ @ @ @ policies .
“ Can you name one Biden policy ?
” Agnew asked Head Turners ’ 60-something barber , Ron Davis .
“ Being Obama ’ s vice is not sufficient , ” he continued .
“ He was chosen to balance the ticket.
” Lumumba and Agnew together sketched Biden ’ s authorship of the 1994 crime bill and large back catalog of racist and borderline racist comments .
One time , Lumumba recounted , Biden told him and other black mayors at a conference in Atlanta that black parents can ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can ’ t read or write.
” “ I just want to make sure you know who we ’ re propping up , ” Lumumba said as the meeting winds down .
“ We have a choice on Tuesday.
” The taciturn barber didn ’ t need much convincing that Sanders ’ s moral economy sounded like a good thing .
“ The rich getting richer , the poor getting poorer , ” he said .
“ People working all their lives , they should be retiring , but still have to work @ @ @ @ @ @ @ But his questions , and the questions from others in the shop , belied a wariness that can ’ t be overcome in 20 minutes a few days before an election : Why isn ’ t Sanders a Democrat ?
How can he offer free health care and tuition when the Republicans are cutting existing benefits ?
Isn ’ t this a capitalist country ?
While the poorest , blackest , and most incarcerated states of the country would seem to be fertile ground for Sanders , at least in the primary , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the most arid .
The Alabama primary was a repeat of the South Carolina vote that refueled Biden ’ s campaign and sent Sanders ’ s into a cross-country skid , and Mississippi will likely continue the pattern .
In 2016 , there was no Mayor Lumumba in the barbershops arguing that Sanders deserves black votes and can beat the Republican , while the famous Democrat doesn ’ t and can ’ t .
How that conversation develops will determine not just the viability of a Sanders nomination in 2020 , but the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ social movement that was supposed to midwife it .
Bernie Sanders has said his candidacy can only succeed if powered by an unprecedented coalition of black , brown , and working-class voters — a magnetized juggernaut that could attract disaffected Americans in a virtuous cycle of self-perpetuating people power .
While the campaign did bring in large numbers of Latinos , new Americans , and millennial black voters , South Carolina showed the limits of any coalition that is missing the older black voters who form a base constituency in much of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with 60 percent of the black vote , with no surge in new voters , a number that he increased to 75 percent a few days later in Alabama on Super Tuesday .
Not much money is spent polling the Mississippi primary , but it ’ s possible that Biden will end up with 80-plus percent of the vote , with black voters making up 70 percent of the electorate .
If so , it will be the second time in four years that Mississippi has handed Sanders his worst loss with a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ does that message say ?
Biden ’ s resurgence produced a market for neat explanations of black political behavior .
The narrative seems to have settled somewhere over the broad thesis that black voters , especially in the South , are generally risk averse and have good reason for being so .
South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn ’ s endorsement of Biden formalized the sense that , despite everything , Biden — with the familiar “ D ” next to his name — is the safest bet for a return to normalcy and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ progressives find this rationale dismaying , given that Sanders performs well in head-to-head matchups against Donald Trump , and is running on a platform much more tailored to the needs of black communities across a range of issues , from health care to criminal justice reform .
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio evinced this dismay when he suggested “ the Clyburn effect ” was a form of low-information false consciousness , echoing familiar Republican canards about black voters ’ generational allegiance to the Democratic Party .
Somewhere , right now , terms @ @ @ @ @ @ @ future bestseller called , “ What ’ s the Matter With South Carolina ?
” The pushback was just as swift .
Black voters , a chorus of voices proclaimed , have as fine an appreciation for the limits , dangers , tragedies , and ironies of U.S. politics as anyone can .
The Nation ’ s Elie Mystal saw the South Carolina vote expressing the cynical judgment that Sanders was too good for us and that his presence in the general would hand Trump reelection — because “ most white people are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ do the right thing.
” In this view , the political risk antenna of older black voters is reliable and hard-earned .
If it warns to take even money rather than bet everything on promises that won ’ t be fulfilled , maybe there ’ s a reason .
But if the default conservatism of this position is understandable , it ’ s also dangerous and debatable , say Sanders supporters , not least for its failure to account for the urgency of the climate crisis .
The Sanders campaign is based on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be formed , and that means finding ways to overcome resistance and win people over .
“ Our organizing has fallen short in some ways with black folks across the South , ” Agnew said .
“ We ’ re purging the feeling that these people don ’ t know what ’ s real , because they do know what ’ s real .
They live real lives .
They ’ ve been told some lies , so we need to be able to engage with it , to speak to people ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ re not the risky bet here.
’ We have the people , the volunteers , the energy .
The path is uncomfortable and new , but it doesn ’ t have to be scary .
Our job is to engage with that on a real level , not talk down to them or call them low-information.
” Organizers for Sanders say such engagement pays off in Mississippi the same as it would anywhere else , though the starting line may be a little farther back .
The biggest obstacle to getting lifetime @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a new kind of politics is a lack of time and people , not just their “ risk averse ” natures .
“ Many people we talk to are hearing about Sanders for the first time from us , or the only thing they know is that someone told them he is a communist , ” said James Hempill , a Sanders organizer and Jackson native .
“ It ’ s a question of having time to explain his program , address electability fears , and explain democratic socialism .
But it ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ older black lady who was leaving her house to go cook for the homeless .
She cares about people , votes in every election — the kind of person you ’ d expect to know about Sanders and the primary .
But she didn ’ t .
Not because she ’ s dumb ; she just didn ’ t know.
” Hempill racked up so many of these stories that when he started canvassing for six months ago , he decided , “ if we had two years to raise awareness , knocking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wins Mississippi in a landslide.
” Something like a landslide occurred in February when Arekia Bennett , director of a Jackson nonprofit called Mississippi Votes , organized a “ people ’ s caucus ” to draw campaign surrogates to the state .
The vote attracted 130 locals and surrogates representing Sanders , Biden , Elizabeth Warren , and Mike Bloomberg .
When Hempill arrived with a small group of Sanders supporters , he didn ’ t like the look of it .
“ It was mostly typical Biden voters — older black voters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ‘ This isn ’ t our room.
’ But after the surrogates all spoke , Sanders won big in two rounds of ranked-choice voting.
” The day after the caucus result , Lumumba endorsed Sanders — the first and only Mississippi Democrat with a statewide profile to do so .
The pairing makes sense , as Lumumba is a rare Sanders-like figure in the Deep South .
The son of a black revolutionary and activist turned lawyer and politician , Lumumba was elected on a progressive platform .
He hosts people ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s municipal budget , which he calls a “ moral document.
” Even so , his Sanders endorsement raised eyebrows in Mississippi .
“ Local reporters were like , ‘ The mayor of Jackson endorsed Bernie Sanders ?
’ People don ’ t expect Jackson to push against the system , ” says Hempill .
of Saturday ’ s barbershop tour , Lumumba and Agnew stopped in at a popular salon , Celebrity Hair Designs .
None of the dozen or so stylists and customers knew much about Sanders , but they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like what they heard .
When the salon ’ s owner took the mayor outside to discuss the potholes on Medgar Evers Boulevard , Sanders ’ s deputy campaign manager , René Spellman , stood up and described how the campaigns ’ economic policies would impact the lives of women .
“ When you can go to college tuition- and debt-free , earn a fair minimum wage , and have a right to affordable housing , you can take risks and spread your wings , ” she said .
“ If you ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ message to your clients between now and Tuesday .
We have a choice .
There ’ s a candidate that will fight for them.
” The idea that a presidential candidate would propose student debt relief and a $ 15 minimum wage was a revelation for one of the stylists , Dominique Wash , a single mother who works several jobs and is finishing a B.A .
that has her $ 60,000 in debt .
“ It ’ s so important that women get paid appropriately , so we can take care of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ finishing up a weave for a young CPA named Anita Bonner .
Mississippi has no state minimum wage , and black women in the state earn just under 70 percent of the national median for black women .
“ It ’ s important the campaign comes around , people need to hear this , ” Bonner said .
“ I was going to vote for Biden , but now I ’ m really wondering .
I didn ’ t know anything about the crime bill.
” That bill — the Crime Control and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ over the stage of the Alamo Theater the following afternoon .
The Mississippi Prison Reform Coalition and the Sanders campaign co-sponsored a panel on the ongoing human rights crisis in the Mississippi prison system , anchored by the notorious facility known as Parchman Farm .
Agnew stood on the dais , where he reminded the audience of the campaign ’ s criminal justice platform , including the elimination of mandatory minimums , three strikes laws — “ everything that was a part of the crime bill that Joe Biden wrote .
Joe Biden @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that ’ s a part of that bill.
” As Agnew spoke , Biden was holding a rally on the other side of town with special guest Vivica Fox , a sitcom and soap opera actress — his first trip to Jackson during the race .
Sanders was also scheduled to be in Jackson that weekend , but he canceled to focus on Michigan , where his Sunday rally featured his latest endorser , Jesse Jackson Jr. Sanders has visited Mississippi twice in recent years .
The first was in support of striking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the second for an economic justice forum hosted by Lumumba on the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr. ’ s assassination .
The New York Times reporter who covered the 2018 trip takes care to note that Sanders missed two chances to impress and connect with large black audiences .
In an observation that now reads like a warning , he wrote that unless Sanders can “ remedy his most significant vulnerability in 2016 ” — anemic support from black voters — he will “ find it nearly impossible to win the @ @ @ @ @

On a bright and blustery Saturday afternoon, three days before the Mississippi primary, the 36-year-old mayor of Jackson, Chokwe Antar Lumumba, approached a group of men drinking beers around a pickup truck outside the Head Turners Barbershop. Bearing the seal of his office on a black windbreaker, Lumumba solemnly informed the men they were in violation of city ordinances, triggering peals of laughter all around. Then Lumumba got down to business. He was there to generate interest in Bernie Sanders, and skepticism about Joe Biden, the presumed favored candidate of Mississippi Democrats.
Lumumba had arrived at the barbershop from a nearby Baptist Church, where he’d launched a Sanders volunteer canvass of the historic black community of Presidential Hill. While volunteers knocked on screen doors and left flyers on porches, he and another surrogate, the Miami-based organizer and educator Philip Agnew, hit the barbershops of north Jackson.
Lumumba and Agnew tag-teamed what can be a heavy lift in Mississippi: introducing Sanders and his platform, defending his electability, and reducing his opponent Biden to a man, as Agnew likes to say, with black friends but no black policies.
“Can you name one Biden policy?” Agnew asked Head Turners’ 60-something barber, Ron Davis. “Being Obama’s vice is not sufficient,” he continued. “He was chosen to balance the ticket.” Lumumba and Agnew together sketched Biden’s authorship of the 1994 crime bill and large back catalog of racist and borderline racist comments. One time, Lumumba recounted, Biden told him and other black mayors at a conference in Atlanta that black parents can’t help with homework because they “can’t read or write.”
“I just want to make sure you know who we’re propping up,” Lumumba said as the meeting winds down. “We have a choice on Tuesday.”
The taciturn barber didn’t need much convincing that Sanders’s moral economy sounded like a good thing. “The rich getting richer, the poor getting poorer,” he said. “People working all their lives, they should be retiring, but still have to work. That’s not right.”
But his questions, and the questions from others in the shop, belied a wariness that can’t be overcome in 20 minutes a few days before an election: Why isn’t Sanders a Democrat? How can he offer free health care and tuition when the Republicans are cutting existing benefits? Isn’t this a capitalist country?
While the poorest, blackest, and most incarcerated states of the country would seem to be fertile ground for Sanders, at least in the primary, they’ve proven instead to be the most arid. The Alabama primary was a repeat of the South Carolina vote that refueled Biden’s campaign and sent Sanders’s into a cross-country skid, and Mississippi will likely continue the pattern.
In 2016, there was no Mayor Lumumba in the barbershops arguing that Sanders deserves black votes and can beat the Republican, while the famous Democrat doesn’t and can’t. How that conversation develops will determine not just the viability of a Sanders nomination in 2020, but the long-term prospects of the multiracial, multigenerational social movement that was supposed to midwife it.
Organizer Philip Agnew, standing, addresses volunteers ahead of canvassing the Presidential Hills neighborhood of Jackson, Miss., on March 7, 2020. Photo: Alex Zaitchik for The Intercept
From the start, Bernie Sanders has said his candidacy can only succeed if powered by an unprecedented coalition of black, brown, and working-class voters — a magnetized juggernaut that could attract disaffected Americans in a virtuous cycle of self-perpetuating people power. While the campaign did bring in large numbers of Latinos, new Americans, and millennial black voters, South Carolina showed the limits of any coalition that is missing the older black voters who form a base constituency in much of the country. Biden sealed his victory there with 60 percent of the black vote, with no surge in new voters, a number that he increased to 75 percent a few days later in Alabama on Super Tuesday.
Not much money is spent polling the Mississippi primary, but it’s possible that Biden will end up with 80-plus percent of the vote, with black voters making up 70 percent of the electorate. If so, it will be the second time in four years that Mississippi has handed Sanders his worst loss with a message taped inside of it.
What does that message say? Biden’s resurgence produced a market for neat explanations of black political behavior. The narrative seems to have settled somewhere over the broad thesis that black voters, especially in the South, are generally risk averse and have good reason for being so. South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn’s endorsement of Biden formalized the sense that, despite everything, Biden — with the familiar “D” next to his name — is the safest bet for a return to normalcy and a never-perfect status quo. Some white progressives find this rationale dismaying, given that Sanders performs well in head-to-head matchups against Donald Trump, and is running on a platform much more tailored to the needs of black communities across a range of issues, from health care to criminal justice reform. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio evinced this dismay when he suggested “the Clyburn effect” was a form of low-information false consciousness, echoing familiar Republican canards about black voters’ generational allegiance to the Democratic Party. Somewhere, right now, terms are probably being negotiated on a controversial future bestseller called, “What’s the Matter With South Carolina?”
The pushback was just as swift. Black voters, a chorus of voices proclaimed, have as fine an appreciation for the limits, dangers, tragedies, and ironies of U.S. politics as anyone can. The Nation’s Elie Mystal saw the South Carolina vote expressing the cynical judgment that Sanders was too good for us and that his presence in the general would hand Trump reelection — because “most white people are selfish and cannot be trusted to do the right thing.” In this view, the political risk antenna of older black voters is reliable and hard-earned. If it warns to take even money rather than bet everything on promises that won’t be fulfilled, maybe there’s a reason.
But if the default conservatism of this position is understandable, it’s also dangerous and debatable, say Sanders supporters, not least for its failure to account for the urgency of the climate crisis. The Sanders campaign is based on a belief that a left supermajority can be formed, and that means finding ways to overcome resistance and win people over.
“Our organizing has fallen short in some ways with black folks across the South,” Agnew said. “We’re purging the feeling that these people don’t know what’s real, because they do know what’s real. They live real lives. They’ve been told some lies, so we need to be able to engage with it, to speak to people’s anxieties and say, ‘We’re not the risky bet here.’ We have the people, the volunteers, the energy. The path is uncomfortable and new, but it doesn’t have to be scary. Our job is to engage with that on a real level, not talk down to them or call them low-information.”
Organizers for Sanders say such engagement pays off in Mississippi the same as it would anywhere else, though the starting line may be a little farther back. The biggest obstacle to getting lifetime Democrats to question the party and imagine a new kind of politics is a lack of time and people, not just their “risk averse” natures.
“Many people we talk to are hearing about Sanders for the first time from us, or the only thing they know is that someone told them he is a communist,” said James Hempill, a Sanders organizer and Jackson native. “It’s a question of having time to explain his program, address electability fears, and explain democratic socialism. But it’s doable. I just met an older black lady who was leaving her house to go cook for the homeless. She cares about people, votes in every election — the kind of person you’d expect to know about Sanders and the primary. But she didn’t. Not because she’s dumb; she just didn’t know.”
Hempill racked up so many of these stories that when he started canvassing for six months ago, he decided, “if we had two years to raise awareness, knocking on doors and having conversations, Bernie wins Mississippi in a landslide.”
Photo: Alex Zaitchik for The Intercept
Something like a landslide occurred in February when Arekia Bennett, director of a Jackson nonprofit called Mississippi Votes, organized a “people’s caucus” to draw campaign surrogates to the state. The vote attracted 130 locals and surrogates representing Sanders, Biden, Elizabeth Warren, and Mike Bloomberg. When Hempill arrived with a small group of Sanders supporters, he didn’t like the look of it. “It was mostly typical Biden voters — older black voters like my mom. We thought, ‘This isn’t our room.’ But after the surrogates all spoke, Sanders won big in two rounds of ranked-choice voting.”
The day after the caucus result, Lumumba endorsed Sanders — the first and only Mississippi Democrat with a statewide profile to do so. The pairing makes sense, as Lumumba is a rare Sanders-like figure in the Deep South. The son of a black revolutionary and activist turned lawyer and politician, Lumumba was elected on a progressive platform. He hosts people’s assemblies in which residents help plan Jackson’s municipal budget, which he calls a “moral document.” Even so, his Sanders endorsement raised eyebrows in Mississippi. “Local reporters were like, ‘The mayor of Jackson endorsed Bernie Sanders?’ People don’t expect Jackson to push against the system,” says Hempill.
Toward the end of Saturday’s barbershop tour, Lumumba and Agnew stopped in at a popular salon, Celebrity Hair Designs. None of the dozen or so stylists and customers knew much about Sanders, but they listened closely, and most seemed to like what they heard. When the salon’s owner took the mayor outside to discuss the potholes on Medgar Evers Boulevard, Sanders’s deputy campaign manager, René Spellman, stood up and described how the campaigns’ economic policies would impact the lives of women. “When you can go to college tuition- and debt-free, earn a fair minimum wage, and have a right to affordable housing, you can take risks and spread your wings,” she said. “If you’re a stylist, please carry this message to your clients between now and Tuesday. We have a choice. There’s a candidate that will fight for them.”
The idea that a presidential candidate would propose student debt relief and a $15 minimum wage was a revelation for one of the stylists, Dominique Wash, a single mother who works several jobs and is finishing a B.A. that has her $60,000 in debt. “It’s so important that women get paid appropriately, so we can take care of our family,” she said, finishing up a weave for a young CPA named Anita Bonner. Mississippi has no state minimum wage, and black women in the state earn just under 70 percent of the national median for black women.
“It’s important the campaign comes around, people need to hear this,” Bonner said. “I was going to vote for Biden, but now I’m really wondering. I didn’t know anything about the crime bill.”
That bill — the Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 — hovered over the stage of the Alamo Theater the following afternoon. The Mississippi Prison Reform Coalition and the Sanders campaign co-sponsored a panel on the ongoing human rights crisis in the Mississippi prison system, anchored by the notorious facility known as Parchman Farm. Agnew stood on the dais, where he reminded the audience of the campaign’s criminal justice platform, including the elimination of mandatory minimums, three strikes laws — “everything that was a part of the crime bill that Joe Biden wrote. Joe Biden wrote. Joe Biden wrote. Everything that’s a part of that bill.”
As Agnew spoke, Biden was holding a rally on the other side of town with special guest Vivica Fox, a sitcom and soap opera actress — his first trip to Jackson during the race. Sanders was also scheduled to be in Jackson that weekend, but he canceled to focus on Michigan, where his Sunday rally featured his latest endorser, Jesse Jackson. Sanders has visited Mississippi twice in recent years. The first was in support of striking workers at a nearby Nissan plant, the second for an economic justice forum hosted by Lumumba on the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination. The New York Times reporter who covered the 2018 trip takes care to note that Sanders missed two chances to impress and connect with large black audiences. In an observation that now reads like a warning, he wrote that unless Sanders can “remedy his most significant vulnerability in 2016” — anemic support from black voters — he will “find it nearly impossible to win the 2020 Democratic nomination.”