CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, CLEVELAND, Ohio- U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders  of Vermont (pictured), a candidate for the Democratic nomination for president and Hillary Clinton's most serious rival, spoke to an energetic audience of more than 6,000 people at the Wolstein Center at Cleveland State University on Monday evening.

Former Ohio senator Nina Turner (pictured), a Black Cleveland Democrat and the national surrogate for the Sanders campaign, introduced him to thundering applause.

"Senator Sanders can win this race, don't listen to the pundits," said Turner. "I am feeling the Bern."

Turner spoke on voter suppression, among a host of other issues, and told the crowd, many of them millennials of the post Generation X era, and a large number of them Democrats, that they can all be part of a political revolution, and that Sanders wants to give all Americans access to "the American dream."

"Nina's speech was off the chain and nearly every issue that impacts African -Americans Bernie Sanders spoke on," said Charles E. Bibb Sr., a  Black Democrat and former East Cleveland councilman who heads the greater Cleveland Carnegie Roundtable

Before speaking Sanders hugged Turner, and thanked his supporters. And he acknowledged Ohio Sen. Michael Skindel, former state representative Mike Foley, former Cuyahoga County commissioner Tim Hagan, former state senator  C.J. Prentiss, and the Rev Dr, Jawanza Colvin, senior pastor at Olivet Institutional Baptist Church in Cleveland and a key participant in the Blacks Lives Matters Movement.

The longtime U.S senator said  that if he is elected president that he and Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur, a Toledo Democrat with Cleveland constituents and the nation's longest serving  female in the U.S. House of Representatives, would push to protect pensions of the teamsters.

The teamsters were there and were among  organized labor, including nurses, public school teachers, state, county and city employees, and factory workers.

"We will not submit to racism, not be divided, and not succumb to "islamophobia," said Sanders, the latter pertaining to heightened fear and unrest following last week's  Paris attacks by ISIS that claimed the lives of at least 129 people and left some 352 others injured.

The presidential hopeful said that the rush to judgement  by some GOP nominees for president, led by Donald Trump, and Republican members of Congress relative to increased aggression by Islamic militants is reckless and "stupid."

Sanders covered an array of issues and pushed his political campaign platform, including support for an increase in the minimum wage, universal healthcare, free college tuition over prisons that house a disproportionate number of Black people, and Planned Parenthood. He also spoke on same sex marriage, voter suppression, and the history of the disenfranchisement of Black America.

Ohioans, he said, need relief too, as do people nationwide,  and from what he says is a crippled and capitalistic system of government that caters to the rich and undermines middle and working class Americans, and the poor.

" In Ohio you see people working two jobs, including spouses and their children," said Sanders. "Fifty-eight percent of new income is going to the top one percent."

Sanders said that his campaign is about "creating an economy that works for all of us, not just for the millionaires and billionaires." (www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com).