“It is one of the honors of my life to be supported by a man who has put his life on the line for the last 50 years fighting for justice,” he told a largely white crowd of thousands gathered for an outdoor rally. “Everything that Jesse Jackson said is what this campaign is about.”

Mr. Sanders has cast his two presidential campaigns in the lineage of Mr. Jackson’s 1988 presidential bid, telling advisers in 2015 that he hoped to model his 2016 operation after that effort. Political contemporaries, the two septuagenarian liberal activists are longtime allies: In 1988, Mr. Sanders, then the mayor of Burlington, Vt., was slapped by an “irate citizen” after supporting Mr. Jackson in the state’s caucuses.

Michigan’s caucuses that year marked a high point for Mr. Jackson’s campaign. He beat Mr. Dukakis in the state by building support among black voters and liberal white caucusgoers — a similar coalition to the one Mr. Sanders hopes to rally when the state votes in its primary on Tuesday.

Mr. Sanders hopes that by beating former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. in this Midwestern state, he can reclaim ground in the presidential race after losing a majority of states on Super Tuesday largely on the weakness of his support among black voters. Michigan has emerged as a pivotal moment for his campaign, as the race moves into a series of delegate-rich primaries in Southern and Rust Belt states that are expected to be less favorable ground for Mr. Sanders.

Yet as he has campaigned across the state, he has drawn overwhelmingly white audiences, raising questions about whether his effort is breaking through with black voters who make up a significant share of the primary electorate. At a Saturday night town-hall-style event in Flint, Mr. Sanders largely ceded the stage to African-American activists who attacked Mr. Biden’s record on criminal justice and on housing policies that they argue devastated communities of color in places like that predominantly black city.