On Tuesday, influential filmmaker Spike Lee became the latest prominent African-American figure to endorse Sen. Bernie Sanders’ insurgent 2016 candidacy in the lead-up to the South Carolina Democratic presidential primary.
Lee joins the likes of Harry Belafonte, Dr. Cornel West, Ta-Neshisi Coates, Danny Glover, and Killer Mike, in singing the praises of Sanders’ radical economic vision and background as an advocate for civil rights and social justice in a new radio advertisement directed at South Carolina voters for the campaign. What all these black celebrities have in common is that they all have been publicly critical of President Obama in the past. West in particular has been vicious, referring to the president as “a Rockefeller Republican in blackface.”
“Ninety-nine percent of Americans were hurt by the Great Recession of 2008, and many are still recovering” Lee says in the ad. “And that’s why I am officially endorsing my brother Bernie Sanders. Bernie takes no money from corporations. Nada. Which means he is not on the take. And when Bernie gets in the White House, he will do the right thing.”
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“How can we be sure?” he asks rhetorically. “Bernie was at the March on Washington with Dr. King. He was arrested in Chicago for protesting segregation in Chicago’s public schools. Fought for wealth and education equality throughout his entire career. No flipping, no flopping. Enough talk, time for action.” Lee ends the spot by giving a shout out to Sanders’ Brooklyn roots.
The outspoken “Inside Man” director has endorsed Democratic presidential candidates in the past. In 2008, he thew his support behind then-Sen. Barack Obama and in 2000 he publicly backed a former star of his beloved New York Knicks, then-New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley, who was challenging Vice President Al Gore for the nomination at the time. Lee has since somewhat soured on Obama. In 2012, the director complained the the president was “not perfect” and was being unreasonably elevated to the status of a “black Jesus.” He nevertheless raised upwards of $1 million for his re-election campaign that January.
More recently, Lee lamented the fact that Obama’s recent rhetoric on gun control did not go far enough in terms of addressing the crisis in the president’s hometown of Chicago.








