Leader of the group sponsoring the event spoke before Sanders and told the audience they shouldn't feel 'ashamed' for asking for reparations

Bernie Sanders was repeatedly pressed to endorse reparations tonight by his own supporters at a 'Black America' community forum.

'I know you’re scared to say ‘black,’ I know you’re scared to say ‘reparations,' panelist Felicia Perry said, then told him, 'Can you please talk specifically about black people and reparations?'

Sanders replied, 'You and I may have a disagreement on this,' but 'it's not just black. This is Latinos. There are areas of America, more rural areas where its whites, OK?

As he talked about income inequality and poverty in the 'African-American community an audience member interrupted to urge him to use the term 'black.'

'I've said 'black' 50 times. That's the 51st,' Sanders declared.

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Bernie Sanders was repeatedly pressed to endorse reparations tonight by his own supporters at a Black America forum in Minneapolis, Minnesota

Sanders does not support reparations for slavery and said tonight at a Neighborhoods Organizing for Change event located in the heart of Minnesota's Native Americans population that he didn't have a magical solution to the problem.

Midway through the event the Democratic presidential candidate was asked about fixing 'historical grievances' in the context of Native Americans.

He said: 'Anybody who studies the history of our country knows that it has been a very rocky history, it has included the abomination of slavery, it has included horrendous attacks on the Native American community.'

'There's no ifs, buts and maybes about that.'

Unemployment, drug addiction and alcoholism in the Native American population are the result, he said.

'Simply throwing federal money and federal bureaucrats at the problem probably is not going to work,' he said. '

'What is going to work is a relationship with the federal government and the Native American communities, by which the federal government provides resources, but the...Native American communities work out the solutions that are most relevant to particular to their needs.'

Continuing, he said, 'Different people approach things in different way.... the best approach in my experience in government is not from a top down process but from a bottom up process.'

Perry later pressed him to talk about the issue in the context of blacks, though.

'It seems like every time we talk about black people and us getting something and systematic oppression...we have to include every other person of color,' she said.

Building on previous answers about jobs and education for African-Americans he had already given, tonight, Sanders said, 'This is a national issue' and we need 'to invest most heavily in those communities most in need.'

At the forum today, before Sanders arrived, Mike Griffin, the field director for the organization set the tone for the event and said, 'There's this cadence that they use to make us feel ashamed for someone who took a group of people, treated them like property, exploited their labor for over 400 years.

Multiple attendees shouted at Sanders about reparations throughout the 'Black America' community forum

Sanders does not support reparations for slavery and said tonight at a Neighborhoods Organizing for Change event located in the heart of Minnesota's Native Americans population that he didn't have a magical solution to the problem

The audience wasn't satisfied. An audience member shouted at him, 'We were promised reparations! We were told we were going to get it!'

Discussion facilitator Anthony Newby acknowledged the complaint and said reparations,' this room is clearly not afraid to talk about it' before moving on to other issues.

The topic of reparations first came up in the 2016 presidential race at the Fusion-sponsored Iowa Brown Black forum in January.

Sanders said in response to a question on whether he would support reparations, 'No, I don’t think so...the likelihood of getting through a Congress is nil.'

He also said, 'I think it would be very divisive. I think the real issue is, when we look at the poverty rate among the African American community, when we look at the high unemployment rate within the African American community, the incarceration rate within the African American community, we have a lot of work to do.'

The U.S. senator said then as he did tonight that the focus should be on investments in cities such as job creation, tuition free college and also mentioned affordable child care.

'Basically, targeting our federal resources to the areas that it is needed the most. And where it is needed the most is in impoverished communities, often African American and Latino.'

The Atlantic‘s Ta-Nehisi Coates tore into him afterward and said, 'the spectacle of a socialist candidate opposing reparations as “divisive” (there are few political labels more divisive in the minds of Americans than socialist) is only rivaled by the implausibility of Sanders posing as a pragmatist.'

'Sanders says the chance of getting reparations through Congress is “nil,” a correct observation which could just as well apply to much of the Vermont senator’s own platform,' Coates wrote.

He added: 'Sanders is a lot of things, many of them good. But he is not the candidate of moderation and unification, so much as the candidate of partisanship and radicalism. There is neither insult nor accolade in this.'

Sanders is seen here at the event with local Congressman Keith Ellison, who has endorsed his candidacy for president

Sanders was subsequently asked about the piece on Meet the Press, where he reiterated his position and pointed out that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton aren't for reparations, either.

'We have got to invest in the future. What we have got to do is address poverty in America,' he said.

'And if you look at my record and if you look at my agenda, raising the minimum wage to 15 bucks an hour, creating millions of jobs by rebuilding our infrastructure, focusing on high rates of youth unemployment. I think our candidacy is the candidacy talking to the issues of the African American community.'

Clinton does essentially have the same position on the issue as Sanders. At the Fusion forum she said, ''I think we should start studying what investments we need to make in communities to help individuals and families and communities move forward.

'And I am absolutely committed to that. There are some good ideas out there.'

For instance, she said the Congressional Black Caucus is interested in 'targeting federal dollars to communities that have had either disinvestment or or no investment, and have had years of being below the poverty level.

'That’s the kind of thing I’d like us to focus on and really help lift people up'.

At the forum today, before Sanders arrived, Mike Griffin, the field director for the organization set the tone for the event and said, 'There's this cadence that they use to make us feel ashamed for someone who took a group of people, treated them like property, exploited their labor for over 400 years.

'And the proof of that exploitation shows up in things like white privilege, disparities across the country, all across the board, the living conditions and equality of life for black people of all of the diaspora. You understand, this sound familiar?'

Griffin said, 'We have nothing to be ashamed of when we're talking about justice...cause no one in this country' has 'put in the dedication, and work, the blood the sweat the tears that we put into this country.'

Hillary Clinton was also in town this evening. Both candidates spokes at a Democratic dinner across town later in the evening. Sanders has pointed out in the past that Clinton doesn't back reparations, either, but left her out of the discussion tonight

The reparations are due to black communities so that they can enjoy an American quality of life, he said.

'Ya'll keep in mind, you're not asking for anything, you're not begging for anything, there's nothing free that you're asking for, there's a debt, and we here to collect on that debt.'

Black audience members who spoke to DailyMail.com were in near universal agreement that reparations should be paid.

What they couldn't agree on was where to come up with the money. An area with a large Muslim population, several attendees said the money should be cut from the payments to Israel for its defense.

One attendee said it should come from taxes given that the cotton, horseshoes and other products slaves made were taxed and capitalized on by the federal government.

Griffin, the NOC organizer, old DailyMail.com he'd like to see that money divested from police departments and jails and 'things that aren't working' in their community and invested in 'racial equity.'

Reparations can mean 'reinvestment in communities most affected' and a 'payback for harm that is done.'

'I mean, I will take a check,' he said 'This is not an either or, but an and.'

Today Sanders took a 'step in the right direction.' Griffin said. 'Hopefully by the end of the election we're going to get him to say specifically he wants to invest in communities that have been harmed historically that are still being harmed systematically, and that all stemmed from slavery.'