How a Brooklyn Upbringing Shaped the Sanders Campaign

Most know Bernie Sanders as the senator from Vermont, a sort of intense, political outsider on a mission to upend a political system that he believes favors the wealthy over the middle class.

But the messages driving his campaign – ending child poverty and halting the influence of corporate money in politics – have roots here in New York, where Sanders was born and raised.

Sanders, now 74, grew up in Brooklyn’s Midwood section, in a small, rented apartment off Kings Highway. His father was an immigrant from Poland who sold paint. His mother was a homemaker.

Larry Sanders, Bernie Sanders’ older brother, says his concerns about income inequality aren't really a surprise. "That really was the situation in our family," he said. “It wasn’t anything we lacked that was the problem. It was the impact that the financial insecurity had on our parents. It was the basis of virtually all the arguments they had. If they were going to have an argument, it was about money."

Sanders is now challenging Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination for president. And while he still lags in name recognition and money – he refuses to accept money from Super PACs and is relying on small donations from supporters – some polls show he is gaining favor among some voters.

Even in New York, where Clinton has overwhelming support among Democrats, Sanders can draw a crowd. Hundreds turned out for a Sanders fundraiser in Midtown last week. The minimum donation was $50.

Leslie Roeder, 50, of Manhattan was there. She said she said she likes his ideas about affordable higher education and a universal health care system. And she – like Sanders – does not support candidates taking corporate money to fund their campaigns. “I’m really sick of all the money that’s being thrown and all the current presidential candidates” from corporations, she said. “Obviously, they’re beholden to these people.”

Longtime friend Richard Sugarman, a professor of religion at the University of Vermont, said college was when Sanders really firmed up his political beliefs. Sanders attended Brooklyn College for a year after high school, though his brother Larry said their mother had a fatal heart condition and so Bernie Sanders spent much of that year at the hospital. She died in 1960 and Bernie Sanders moved on to the University of Chicago.

Sugarman said Sanders participated in civil rights activities in college, and it was there that he also recognized that people were able to raise themselves up in society due to two things: "their economic class and their ability to get an education."

Sanders has been using politics to fight for both ever since, Sugarman said. The Vermont senator has a small, but loyal following in New York. Ironically, his biggest challenge in taking that message to the White House, is another New  Yorker, Hillary Clinton.