Sanders sought to contrast his politics with those of the former secretary of state, saying he is the candidate for those seeking “real change” and looking for someone “who has stood up to every special interest throughout his political career.”

“You elect me, you’re going to have a president who is prepared to take on the billionaires class, not take their money,” Sanders told Sharpton's gathering, which Clinton addressed earlier in the week.

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The appearances come amid a stretch before the crucial New York primary next week in which Clinton and Sanders have traded barbs over one another’s preparations and qualifications for the job of president. Sanders’s criticism of Clinton has ebbed and flowed in recent days.

During his remarks Thursday, Sanders ticked off a long list of issues facing the African American community and the country more broadly, including high levels of unemployment, high incarceration rates, “crumbling” infrastructure and what he called voter suppression efforts by Republican governors.

“If you believe that those issues can be addressed by establishment politics and establishment economics, you’ve got a very good candidate to vote for, but it’s not Bernie Sanders,” Sanders said. “That’s the truth.”

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He continued: “If you think, and I don’t mean to be disrespectful here, that you can run for office, have a super PAC and raise tens of millions of dollars from wealthy special interests and then go out and take on the big-money interests and protect working families, well if you think that, you’ve got a very good candidate out there, but it’s not Bernie Sanders.”

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On the campaign trail, Sanders routinely criticizes Clinton, a former U.S. senator who represented New York, for her ties to Wall Street, including accepting campaign donations and speaking fees.

On Thursday, he cited two examples of his willingness to take positions that he characterized as correct but largely unpopular at the time.

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Sanders pointed out that in 1988, as mayor of Burlington, Vt., he backed the presidential bid of civil-rights leader Jesse Jackson, who was in the audience Thursday. That, Sanders said, was hard to do in a largely white state.

“It wasn’t a popular thing to do,” Sanders said. "I had to take on the whole Democratic establishment in Vermont.”

Sanders also touted his opposition to a landmark welfare reform bill passed in 1996 during Bill Clinton’s presidency, saying it “scapegoated the poorest people in America.”