On less than 48 hours notice, the amazing organizers in Gainesville, Florida, pulled off a flawless rally for Bernie Sanders. I got there about 8:30 and stood in a block and a half long line chatting with some some lovely University of Florida freshmen and sophomore women who were so excited to be there. One of my friends and her band rocked the house while we were waiting for the stumping to start.
It was kinda like old home week. I saw a lot of people I met through Occupy and have worked with on all sorts of social and economic justice projects ever since. Everyone was smiling.
By the time Bernie came on stage, there were several thousand people on the field. This was an outdoor event. I saw one estimate of 7,000, but I think that’s probably a little high. I think 4 or 5. It was mostly students, which is what I expected given the difficult to park at venue, but there were a lot of us townfolk, too. I was disappointed that the crowd was only about 5% black. Gainesville is about 23% black, but the student body of UF is only about 6.5%, so there’s that.
The first two speakers were UF students who have been working on organizing students to campaign for Bernie. One of them is a young woman I’ve come to know a little over the last year. She’s very talented, and she did a great job today.
Then came Tulsi Gabbard, who gave a strong and rousing speech. She’s impressive!
Then came the man himself.
I must admit I was rather surprised at the intensity of the goosebumps I felt when he and Jane walked on stage. Just wow. He spoke for about an hour and since I’ve heard him dozens of times, I could practically talk verbatim right along with him. The crowd was engaged and cheering all the way through, as is common at Bernie rallies.
I had to leave a few minutes before he wound it up because I had a previous commitment to take a group of 8, 9, and 10 year olds to the museum of natural history this afternoon. The museum, as it happens, is right across the street from the field that was the rally venue this morning. I told my eight black and two Asian kiddos that I’d been to the Bernie rally earlier in the day. Two of them told me that their parents were voting for Hillary, one said hers were voting for Bernie, and all of them were very, very vocal that they didn’t want Trump to be president. Kids are real smart.
All right, that’s all the words I got for now. The rest is just a few pics.