![11,000 Sanders supporters filled the Phoenix Convention Center on Saturday, July 18,2015. (Photo by Dennis Gilman)](https://i0.wp.com/blogforarizona.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/phoenix-sanders-by-DG.jpg?resize=300%2C168&ssl=1)
Saturday was a day of highs and lows for Senator Bernie Sanders.
In the morning at Netroots Nation, Sanders became visibly annoyed by Black Lives Matter protesters who wanted to hear more than stump speeches from Democratic presidential candidates Sanders and former Governor Martin O’Malley. They wanted to know what President Sanders or President O’Malley would do to end systemic racism in the US. They didn’t get an answer from either candidate.
In the evening– again at the Phoenix Convention Center– Sanders was greeted enthusiastically by a mostly white crowd of 11,000 progressives cheering his economic inequality stump speech. According to news accounts, this was Sanders’ largest crowd to date.
The whiteness of Sanders’ supporters has come up before, but Netroots Nation (NN15) really brought the issue home for me.