WS Chronicle

By Mayeesa Mitchell

For The Chronicle

Among the 9,000 attendees at presidential candidate Bernie Sanders’ rally at the Greensboro Coliseum on Sunday, Sept. 13 were many residents of Forsyth County. Some had the intention of learning more about the candidate and others wanted to show support for the candidate they have already declared their favorite.

Trent Harmon, third vice chair of the Forsyth County Democratic Party and treasurer of Young Democrats of Forsyth County, was one of the Forsyth County residents who attended.

“I haven’t seen that many young people [at a rally] since Obama’s first election in 2008,” said Harmon.

According to Harmon, the crowd was youthful and eclectic, ranging from high school students to senior citizens and people with young children. Overall, he described the crowd as young, loud and energetic.

Sanders’ 70-minute speech covered a broad range of topics including: income inequality, unemployment, minimum wage, paid family leave, the Voting Rights Act, college tuition, immigration reform, institutional racism and police reform.

He took a clear stance on these issues, stating that every public college and university should be free of cost, the federal minimum wage needs to be increased to $15 an hour and that there needs to be major reform in “a very broken criminal justice system.”

Sanders openly criticized Republican lawmakers in North Carolina for changing the voting laws after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a potion of the federal Voting Rights Act in 2013.

He said, “Hours after that decision, you had Republicans all across this country figuring out ways as to how they could suppress the vote of poor people, old people, people of color.”

Although Sanders is still seeking the black vote, many polls suggest that he is beginning to dominate the millennial vote.

Harmon believes this is because Sanders “is addressing issues that millennials are most concerned about in a personal and honest way.”

Sanders ended his speech by stating, “When we stand together there is nothing we cannot accomplish, but we cannot accomplish any of that unless people get involved with the political process.”