NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. — Bernie Sanders made his most aggressive pitch yet to black voters during a weekend swing through South Carolina, and only part of that blitz was visible to the public.

In a set of four speeches throughout the state, the Independent Vermont senator and liberal 2016 presidential candidate marbled his stump speech with topics designed to appeal to African Americans: criminal justice reform, voter disenfranchisement, economic inequality among minorities, and preventing police brutality.


“When we talk about making our country the kind of nation that it must become, we must talk about ending institutional racism,” Sanders said during a stop in Columbia on Friday, to cheers from the crowd. “We need major reforms to our broken criminal justice system.”

The Sanders campaign also quietly reached out to local black leaders and activists for small-group sit-downs on subjects important to the black community. His campaign did not announce the gatherings, and aides declined to provide a list of the people he met with, describing them only as as meetings with “ministers, elected officials, and community leaders.”

“We’re talking about problems facing the African-American community in South Carolina. I’m learning a lot,” was all Sanders would say about them during a brief interview on Saturday.

But Sanders — who polls badly among black voters and has had his appearances disrupted several times by protesters from the Black Lives Matter movement — wasn’t here just to listen. African Americans made up roughly 28 percent of the vote in South Carolina in 2012. Roughly half of the state’s Democratic primary electorate is black. For all his evident appeal in overwhelmingly white Iowa and New Hampshire, Sanders needs those voters to go his way if he has any hope of beating Hillary Clinton here.

Interviews suggested it will be tough going.

“I think he’s probably coming up to speed on race,” Rev. Joseph Darby, the presiding elder of the Beaufort District of the AME Church, said of Sanders.

“I think Hillary’s a little bit more up to speed because she’s been dealing with the Obama proposals in the past. She’s got that depth of experience,” Darby said. “I think the senator being from Vermont, there’s probably not a whole heck of a lot of black constituents up there, so I don’t know that he’s had the opportunity she’s had to interact this often with African Americans.”

There was a formula to Sanders’ public appearances and private meetings in South Carolina, participants noted: The events began with the senator being introduced by Symone Sanders, the campaign’s national press secretary and an advocate for black criminal justice reform. Symone Sanders — no relation to the senator — made sure each time to mention the importance of the Voting Rights Act and to tout her boss as 2016’s biggest champion of racial and economic equality.

But while his message seemed to resonate, Sanders didn’t enjoy quite the rock-star treatment he’s received up north. Instead of pulsating crowds of around 15,000 in Madison, Wisconsin, or 28,000 in Portland, Oregon, he drew an estimated crowd of 2,800 in Greenville and around 3,150 for his appearance in North Charleston. The vast majority of attendees at each event were white.

Which is not to say that Sanders didn’t try hard to reach black voters. He tweaked his usual spiel on economic inequality, education, and poverty to speak more directly to African Americans’ concerns, and suggested the racially motivated massacre of eight parishioners in Charleston was hardly a one-off event.

“Racism remains a much too real part of American life,” Sanders said Saturday at the smallest of his events, in Sumter. “I’m not just talking about the sickness of a man who could walk into a Bible study class in Charleston, pray with people in the room and discuss the Bible and then take a gun and kill nine of those people. That is something literally beyond my comprehension. I don’t understand how that could happen.”

In Spartanburg, a town of almost 40,000, Sanders met with small clusters of community leaders, ministers, and elected officials, as he did in Orangeburg, Sumter, and Charleston. In each place, the message was the same: I’m the guy interested in understanding your problems.

“The racial justice platform is something we’re talking about a lot,” said Chris Covert, Sanders’ South Carolina state director. “We’re talking a lot about education — South Carolina is a place that struggles with its education.”

Sanders in the last few months has had several awkward encounters with black protesters, some of whom have taken over the stage at his events. At one crowded rally in Seattle, meant to be about Social Security, protesters identifying themselves as members of the Black Lives Matter movement seized the microphone from Sanders, forcing organizers to shut down the event.

Weeks earlier, Sanders was set to discuss immigration reform in Phoenix when protesters with Black Lives Matter marched onto the stage and demanded he focus more on issues specific to the African-American community. Sanders got so frustrated that first he testily said, “I have spent 50 years of my life fighting for civil rights and if you don’t want me to be here, that’s OK.” When told he was out of time, Sanders curtly said, “OK, good.”

The campaign’s realization that it had a problem led them to bring on Symone Sanders, a 25-year-old Black Lives Matter activist who regularly introduces the senator at events and discusses voter disenfranchisement and the importance of criminal justice reform.

In South Carolina, aides also set up a few smaller meetings to allow for more interaction. On Friday, for example, Sanders met with 50 community and religious leaders at the Springfield Baptist Church in Greenville, most of whom were African American, and hammered home the need for criminal justice reform.

Kimberlyn Kimpson, the wife of state Sen. Marlon Kimpson, was among 20 or so people who went to the meeting at the North Charleston Convention Center bracketing Sanders’ speech there. She described Sanders as very “personal” and “knowledgeable about statistics” for the topics he discussed.

But he left her wanting more. “Honestly, I think he was only answering questions for maybe 10 or 15 minutes,” said Kimpson. “It really wasn’t that long.”

Covert said the meetings here were all “extremely positive and extremely productive. Nobody has walked out of there and said ‘I don’t want to learn more’ or ‘I’m not engaged’.”

But in general, the feeling among prominent black leaders here is that while Sanders’ efforts are appreciated, he’s still got a long way to go.

“If you’re not serious in your outreach and strategic in your outreach, I don’t think you have a shot,” said Anton Gunn, a former South Carolina state representative.

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Talking about economic inequality, Marlon Kimpson said, is only the beginning. “We’re going to be asking some tough questions about the issue that he speaks eloquently about — income inequality — but also the creation of wealth and capital in our respective communities.”

On the organizing front, the Sanders campaign is still playing catchup. It has two offices open in the state, one in Charleston and one in Columbia, and eight paid staff. By the end of October, Covert said, the campaign could have “potentially two or three more,” with the main headquarters in Charleston and the other outposts being field offices. “We plan on hiring a large amount of people,” he said. “Every office is going to have between three to four full-time staffers at a minimum.”

Still, it seems hard to imagine Sanders repeating the feat of 2008, where black voters went dramatically for Obama over Clinton, allowing him to win the primary 55 percent to 27 percent.

And Clinton is leaving nothing to chance this time. She hired early and not just a skeleton crew: a communications director and state director, as well as additional personnel. The campaign says it has two offices open in Columbia and Charleston, 13 paid staff, and 1,400 active volunteers.

Then there’s the wild card: Vice President Joe Biden, who is toying with running and is thought to be focusing on South Carolina.

Sanders seemed unsure how Biden’s entry would shake up the race. “I’ve known Joe Biden for many many years. The people who know him respect him. If Joe gets into this race, I look forward to continuing running an issue-oriented campaign and discuss[ing] the important issues of the country with Joe,” he told POLITICO on Saturday. “Whether he gets in or not, I have no idea, and what its impact will be, I just don’t know.”

But Clinton aides have already indicated that he could give her a real scare here, and local black leaders agreed.

“Joe Biden has a long track record in this state of having several local elected leaders who are strong supporters of his and have been with Joe Biden going all the way back to 2006, even before he was running for president,” Gunn said. But Clinton had many loyalists as well, he noted.

Not Bernie.

“Senator Sanders is a newcomer to all of this; he’s a newcomer to Southern politics,” Gunn said. “I mean, being from Vermont, I can’t think of a place that’s further from the hearts and minds of South Carolina than Vermont.”