If you are from the Buck­eye state, or if you reg­u­lar­ly tune into CNN and MSNBC to watch elec­tion cov­er­age, you know Nina Turn­er. She is that Sanders sur­ro­gate with a gift for gab who nev­er tires of talk­ing up Bernie’s can­di­da­cy. Turn­er served in the Ohio state Sen­ate from 2008 until 2015. She made a run for Ohio sec­re­tary of state, and lost. Today she is a co-chair of the Ohio Task­force on Com­mu­ni­ty-Police Rela­tions and is seen as a like­ly can­di­date for may­or of Cleve­land in 2017.

We need a leader who understands that everybody’s journey is not the same and that our government is designed for us to do collectively what we cannot do as individuals.

As a ris­ing star in the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty (Bill Clin­ton wrote a fundrais­ing let­ter on her behalf when she ran for sec­re­tary of state), Turn­er made nation­al news in Novem­ber, when, feel­ing the Bern, she very pub­licly switched her alle­giance from Hillary Clin­ton (she was involved in the Ready for Hillary PAC) to Bernie Sanders. Born in 1967, the old­est of sev­en chil­dren, at age 14 Turn­er began work­ing to sup­port her fam­i­ly. Upon grad­u­a­tion from a Cleve­land high school, she enrolled in Cuya­hoga Com­mu­ni­ty Col­lege, where she earned an associate’s degree. From there she went on to Cleve­land State Uni­ver­si­ty and earned a B.A. and an M.A. in his­to­ry. She is cur­rent­ly a his­to­ry pro­fes­sor at Cuya­hoga Com­mu­ni­ty College.

Turn­er has said her role mod­el is her grand­moth­er, Inez Emer­son: ​“She may have only had a third-grade edu­ca­tion, but she was by far the wis­est woman I have ever met.” Emer­son told her of the three things one need­ed to suc­ceed in life: a wish­bone, a jaw­bone and a backbone.

Turner’s wish­bone is intact: She sup­ports Sanders because he is some­one with whom she says she shares ​“heart-soul agreement.”

Turner’s jaw­bone is leg­end, her ora­tor­i­cal skills hav­ing made her some­thing of a cult fig­ure among Bernie sup­port­ers. In 2009, the Plain Dealer’s Hen­ry J. Gomez wrote, ​“At her speechi­fy­ing best, Turn­er will mix in humor, quotes from his­tor­i­cal fig­ures and urban slang to reach a diverse audience.”

As for back­bone? Her sup­port for Sanders comes as no sur­prise. Turn­er built her career chal­leng­ing the ortho­doxy of the African-Amer­i­can polit­i­cal class. In 2009, as a state sen­a­tor, she sup­port­ed a bal­lot ini­tia­tive to restruc­ture — and thus reform — Cuya­hoga County’s cor­rupt gov­ern­ment. For her temer­i­ty, the black polit­i­cal estab­lish­ment threat­ened to ruin her and a local African-Amer­i­can news­pa­per attacked her as the ​“lone black who is car­ry­ing the water for white folks.” But the mea­sure passed, and Turn­er tri­umphed — a ris­ing star in Ohio politics.

I inter­viewed Turn­er on The Ben­jamin Dixon Show, my YouTube broad­cast. What fol­lows is an edit­ed ver­sion of our conversation.

Why are so many black vot­ers sup­port­ing Hillary Clinton?

African Amer­i­cans are brand loy­al. I would love to see our peo­ple cri­tique the peo­ple that they are vot­ing for. We usu­al­ly sup­port those who stand up for social jus­tice in this coun­try, but we’re not doing that in this case. It’s total blind loy­al­ty, with­out ask­ing for any­thing in return. I’m stunned.

If Hillary Clin­ton wins, it’s going to be by virtue of the black vote. We are mak­ing deci­sions detri­men­tal to the black com­mu­ni­ty and neglect­ing eco­nom­ics. What is your mes­sage to black voters?

We, as a peo­ple, can­not sep­a­rate eco­nom­ics from race. That being said, we as a nation are nev­er ever going to be able to deal with the chal­lenges of race and of class until we admit our sin, which is: White lives are more val­ued in this coun­try than black.

But Bernie Sanders in the ​’60s was stand­ing up for black lives as a young per­son, a sim­i­lar age to most of the Black Lives Mat­ter activists. In 1988, Bernie, the may­or of Burling­ton, stood up for Rev. Jesse Jack­son when the major­i­ty of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty did not. That’s heart-soul agree­ment right there.

I know African Amer­i­cans are a bit con­ser­v­a­tive on these kinds of issues, but even in the ​’70s this man wrote a let­ter talk­ing about how anti-gay laws are wrong. I’m not say­ing the man is per­fect — but his moral com­pass has been in the right place the entire time. I just wish more peo­ple would do some research.

It dri­ves me insane to see peo­ple so eco­nom­i­cal­ly priv­i­leged that they aren’t con­cerned about eco­nom­ics. Mak­ing the con­ver­sa­tion only about race doesn’t yield any­thing pro­duc­tive for peo­ple who are work­ing for $8 per hour. One of our dai­ly expe­ri­ences as African Amer­i­cans is liv­ing pay­check to pay­check, but that real­i­ty is now com­plete­ly oblit­er­at­ed by iden­ti­ty pol­i­tics. Can you tell us some of the things you have faced per­son­al­ly as a black woman for Bernie Sanders? There’s a lot being said about ​“Bernie Bros.”

Oh my God. Trust and believe me that the Hillary Clin­ton sup­port­ers can be just as bad; they have been just as bad. I nev­er go on oth­er people’s Face­book pages or Twit­ter feeds talk­ing smack to them. I am proud of my sup­port for Sanders because he does have that heart-soul agree­ment. But it’s been ven­omous. It’s curi­ous to me how we fall out with each oth­er over my sup­port for a pres­i­den­tial can­di­date. At the end of the day, we’re all black, we’re all part of the 99%.

I don’t just want to focus on the neg­a­tive. Thou­sands of the Senator’s sup­port­ers have had my back when peo­ple have been say­ing out­ra­geous things. And some of my friends are sup­port­ing the Sec­re­tary, but we’re not falling out about it. At the end of the day our friend­ship is big­ger than who we are sup­port­ing for president.

How do we reach out to those who have been dis­en­gaged from pol­i­tics? Those are the peo­ple we need, more than wor­ry­ing about pulling sup­port away from Sec­re­tary Clinton.

That is a beau­ti­ful ques­tion. Some peo­ple are dis­en­gaged because of their low socioe­co­nom­ic sta­tus in this coun­try and we have to remind them that the pow­er is in their hands, no mat­ter how upset they are with the sys­tem. The sys­tem only works when they are in it. We have to reg­is­ter more peo­ple to vote and let them know that you can’t nation-build every four years. You nation-build every sin­gle year

We have to acknowl­edge our people’s pain and hurt and dis­ap­point­ment with the polit­i­cal class, because we do have folks elect­ed to polit­i­cal office who don’t care about the peo­ple they serve. The peo­ple are tired of it. But we have oth­ers who are real­ly true pub­lic servants.

Where does the pro­gres­sive move­ment go from here?

All the peo­ple who are engaged, even if Bernie is not the nom­i­nee, must con­tin­ue to col­lec­tive­ly push this sys­tem to answer to the major­i­ty of the peo­ple. I’ll sum it up with a quote by Con­gress­woman Bar­bara Jor­dan: ​“What the peo­ple want is very sim­ple — they want an Amer­i­ca as good as its promise.” One great pres­i­dent can­not do it alone. Change hap­pens in this coun­try from the grass­roots and not the grass-tops.

What do you say to those peo­ple who have no con­fi­dence in this polit­i­cal sys­tem? What can Bernie Sanders say, what can you say, to them to get them up to go vote?

Speak­ing out against the 1996 wel­fare reform bill, the one that had a dog whis­tle in it — the notion of the wel­fare queen — Bernie took to the floor of the House and said that this is wrong. Like­wise, when I hear him talk about free uni­ver­si­ty edu­ca­tion, as a first-gen­er­a­tion col­lege grad­u­ate, that means so much to me. I want all chil­dren — black, brown, Native Amer­i­can and white — to have that oppor­tu­ni­ty, and not to be sad­dled with debt — debt in one hand and a degree in the other.

Edu­ca­tion helped me become a cycle-break­er. My moth­er died at 42 years old with her dreams deferred. She died on the sys­tem of wel­fare. My mom worked hard. She tried hard. But every­body doesn’t run a race at the same pace. We need a leader who under­stands that everybody’s jour­ney is not the same and that our gov­ern­ment is designed for us to do col­lec­tive­ly what we can­not do as individuals.

Bernie Sanders’ moral com­pass does not change based on polit­i­cal expe­di­en­cy. We have to do this for the next gen­er­a­tion of young folks in this coun­try. They deserve bet­ter. That is what we are liv­ing for.