Former NAACP president Hazel Dukes dismissed the significance of Bernie Sanders’ participation in the March on Washington in 1963. She is pictured here with Hillary Clinton in 2008. | AP Photo Clinton surrogates knock Sanders' record on race

The race about race is on.

On a conference call with African-American surrogates for Hillary Clinton, civil rights leader and former NAACP president Hazel Dukes dismissed the significance of Bernie Sanders’ participation in the March on Washington in 1963, when he was a college student. “I don’t remember,” Dukes, a major player in the civil rights movement at the time, said. “He probably was a participant. There were many people participating… thousands of people walked in Washington. What [are] the real policy issues that he has presented?”


As she looks toward the more diverse March states, Clinton is putting a new focus on race. The first salvo came Wednesday, when African-American elected officials and civil rights leaders supporting her campaign participated in a conference call to raise questions about Sanders’ record on gun violence and criminal justice reform.

Just hours after her brutal loss to Sanders in overwhelmingly white New Hampshire, New York Congressman Hakeem Jeffries told reporters on the call that “issues of significance to communities of color will now be discussed and debated" as the nominating contest moves to Nevada and South Carolina. "When you match up the record of Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, there simply is no comparison," he said. “She’s been at the dance from the beginning of her career." In contrast, “Sanders has been missing in action on issues of importance to the African American community," Jeffries said, characterizing him as “a new arrival to the dance...at the twilight of his career.”

Jeffries pointed to Sanders' record on guns, including his five votes against the Brady Bill. "Young African American men [are] being killed every year by the hundreds...in terms of gun violence," he said. Another surrogate, South Carolina House Minority Leader Todd Rutherford, who endorsed Clinton on Wednesday, brought up Sanders’ vote for the 1994 crime bill -- a tougher critique for the Clinton campaign when the bill in question was signed into law by Bill Clinton.

In discussing Clinton's commitment to the top priority issues for black voters, Jeffries also underscored two words that have been a problem for Clinton: “genuine” and “authentic.”

Sanders campaign said it expects a full-court press on his record from the Clinton operation. On Wednesday, with the national spotlight focused on him after his decisive victory in New Hampshire, Sanders chose to dine with Rev. Al Sharpton in Harlem.

“We’re very proud of Bernie’s record, of his life story,” said senior adviser Tad Devine. “Because this is a campaign, people will question that. I don’t think they can question the reality of it, or sincerity of his commitment.

Devine pointed to “actions he took as mayor” of Burlington that show the depth of his commitment to civil rights, and admitted there were provisions in the 1994 crime bill that Sanders did not agree with. The Sanders campaign, he said, is running biographical advertisements in South Carolina, showing off Sanders’ formative years being raised by immigrant parents and his deep involvement in the civil rights movement as a college student.

“We believe he has the best agenda for people in America who are concerned about issues of equality and justice,” Devine said.

