Alex Paris, left, and Charles Malmsten wait to gain entry to the Bernie Sanders rally at the Los Angeles Sports Arena. Haya El Nasser / Al Jazeera America

Most on the left have kept quiet because speaking out against the young black activists may be interpreted as opposing the Black Lives Matter movement that they actually support.

But now, even black voters such as Charles Malmsten, a 31-year-old African American lawyer who attended the Los Angeles event, are expressing their discontent.

“I’m pissed off about that,” said Malmsten, of the Seatte kerfuffle. “They’re hijacking the movement. … It simply looks bad.”

His friend, Alex Paris, a 31-year-old black marketing professional, said he came to the event to learn more about Sanders. He also said the Black Lives Matter tactics in Seattle were disconcerting, “especially since he (Sanders) has a history of working with black groups on civil rights issues.”

Sanders has emerged as the strongest Democratic presidential contender after Hillary Clinton. A recent CNN poll shows the Vermont Senator trailing Clinton by only 6 points in New Hampshire.

Thousands have flocked to Sanders rallies across the country, many sporting “Feel the Bern” T-shirts. His West Coast swing is taking him to the deep-blue states of Washington (Seattle), Oregon (Portland) and California (Oakland and Los Angeles) where his stump speech recitation of hot-button issues hits all the marks with liberals: education, gay marriage, equal pay for women, 12 weeks of parental leave, pro-choice, affordable solar energy, ending to poverty with livable wages, a path to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants, and, always a popular cry, spread the wealth now in the hands of the 1 percenters — “Billionaires, you can't have it all” brought a roar of approval in Los Angeles.

Hours before the rally, Sanders won the endorsement of the 180,000-member National Nurses United at a live and virtual event in Oakland. A nurse asked Sanders by phone how he would address racism within the criminal justice system. His answer was prompt.

“When we talk about creating a new America, at the top of our list is the end of racism in all its ugly forms,” he said. “All of us were nauseated, when we have seen the videos ... we know that if those folks were white they would not be dragged out of cars and thrown into jails.”

Sanders' response received generous applause. A woman in the crowd yelled, “Senator, do black lives matter to you?”

“Yes,” he said.

On Monday night, Sanders was introduced to the arena crowd by a rainbow coalition of minority and climage change activists and union supporters, including a nurse.

Symone Sanders, the National Youth Chair of the Coalition for Juvenile Justice, reminded the crowd that Monday was the first anniversary of the killing of black teenager Michael Brown by Ferguson, Missouri, police and that protesters continue their work.

“Today, they are still on the streets,” she said, to thunderous applause. “Black lives matter. … It’s important to have people in political office who can turn their words into action.”

A man was shot and wounded Sunday night during an anniversary event marking Brown's death, and St. Louis County declared a state of emergency Monday. The Sanders rally also came on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the Watts riots.