BALTIMORE – Only minutes into U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders’ tour through the impoverished Sandtown community in West Baltimore on December 8, he stopped in front of a check cashing store. “What I’m seeing is ‘Checks Cashed,’” Sanders said. “Why go in there and cash my check?”
His leading tour guide, Pastor Jamal-Harrison Bryant of Baltimore’s Empowerment Temple, explained: “You can’t find banks here. They just drop ATMs. So, they take your money, but they’re not looking for you to invest or to save. Our communities are peppered with these check cashing places that we want to see closed.”
As they continued the walk, trailed by dozens of other pastors, community leaders, neighborhood residents and reporters, Sanders got an earful.
Bryant described the 16,000 abandoned homes in Baltimore neighborhoods, “stores with no fresh vegetables, no produce; literally processed, canned” foods, and the 20 black-owned businesses with no insurance money to rebuild after being burned out during the April riots. Simultaneously, neighborhood residents called out their need for jobs and activities to keep children off the streets.
“They don’t want us to sell drugs. We need help to get a job!” shouted one woman.
Glaring at the blight, Sanders appeared confounded.
“One would not know that we’re living in the wealthiest country in the history of the world when what you look at is what a third-world country would look like,” he said.
Organized by Bryant, Sanders’ whirlwind visit in the 63.7 percent black city of Baltimore was like a snap shot of Black America – a far cry from Sanders’ home town of Burlington, Vermont, with a black population of 3.9 percent.
“He needed to see what the realities of Baltimore are,” said Bryant.
More than a dozen pastors and community leaders then convened with Sanders back at the Freddie Gray Empowerment Center. There, the presidential candidate – who self-identifies as a “democratic socialist” – responded to issues rolled out by the pastors.
“If you look at Sandtown, there’s not a bank branch within two miles of the neighborhood,” said the Rev. S. Todd Yeary, pastor of the Douglas Memorial Community Church in Baltimore. “But you can find cashing stores and liquor stores.”
Sanders agreed, reflecting on his brief tour of Sandtown.
“We walked around. There were no branch banks here. So where do I do my banking? What do I have to pay to cash my check of $250? What interest rate do I have to pay? Point being, it is very expensive to be poor,” Sanders said.
“Where I live, there is quality food. I didn’t see a grocery store around here. So, what are moms feeding their kids? Potato chips? It’s quite expensive. It probably costs more to eat here than it does in my community, to be honest with you, and the quality is substantially worse. Clearly, we need a revolution in financial services in America.”
