Getty Sanders to meet with black activist group Wednesday Sanders' meeting with Campaign Zero is his latest move to win over skeptical activists in the African-American community.

Bernie Sanders is meeting with members from Campaign Zero on Wednesday to discuss the independent Vermont senator's racial justice platform.

The meeting is one of the latest moves by Sanders to win over skeptical and prominent activists in the African-American community who have been pushing top political figures to pay more attention to criminal justice and police brutality.


The website of Campaign Zero — which is separate and distinct from the more diffuse Black Lives Matter movement — is clear about the group's purpose: "The next President needs to tell the truth about police violence and urgently enact a comprehensive agenda to address it."

Deray McKesson, the leader of the group, tweeted out the meeting on Tuesday, and the campaign confirmed it.

"We're meeting w/ @BernieSanders tomorrow afternoon in DC. We just confirmed it this morning," McKesson tweeted.

The Sanders campaign declined to offer any more details on where the meeting will be held, or who specifically from the Sanders campaign and which members of Campaign Zero would be in attendance. But a source with knowledge of the meeting said the discussion would be on the Sanders campaign's racial justice issues platform, Campaign Zero, and "actionable steps" going forward.

Sanders, who represents a state that is 95.2 percent white and less than 2 percent black, has struggled to gain credibility with African-American voters, who overwhelmingly back Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary. Black voters are a critical Democratic constituency, especially in states like South Carolina.

In July, activists identifying themselves as members of the Black Lives Matter movement hijacked a candidate forum at Netroots Nation forum demanding that Sanders and former Maryland governor Martin O'Malley focus more on police brutality and criminal justice reform.

In the weeks since, Sanders has taken very public steps to win over the black community, working explict appeals about racial justice into his stump speech and reaching out to African-American groups.

During a recent set of campaign stops in South Carolina, for instance, Sanders organized closed-door meetings with prominent African-American leaders in the state.

And on Tuesday Sanders, according to his campaign, "joined civil rights demonstrators on the last leg of a 860-mile march from Selma, Alabama, to call on Congress to restore the Voting Rights Act."