Half past noon on Sunday, June 19, the People’s Summit ended. The Bernie Sanders photo collage was folded up, the round tables broken down, the hall cleared of the roughly 3,000 conference-goers—including nurses, social activists, and volunteers—who had just spent three jam-packed days networking and strategizing.
“No one came in here with a big ol’ plan.”
National Nurses United (NNU), a union of nearly 185,000 nurses that endorsed Bernie Sanders, hosted the People’s Summit in Chicago, along with grassroots organizations like People for Bernie and the Democratic Socialists of America. Their goal was to facilitate connections between organizers, urge Sanders’ supporters to answer his call that they run for office themselves, and to strategize for the Democratic National Convention in July and beyond.
Speakers like Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawai‘i) and author Naomi Klein addressed ways to capitalize on the momentum of Sanders’ campaign, now that he no longer has a path to the nomination. It remains to be seen what concrete steps activists will take, but one thing’s for sure: Bernie supporters aren’t giving up.
As RoseAnn DeMoro, executive director of NNU, said in her closing speech: “No one came in here with a big ol’ plan. The nurses, we’re going the distance with Bernie. We’re going to the DNC. We’re going to fight on our issues. I don’t care what they have to say, we’re going in there together, right?”
Meet six people from the summit who are still feeling the Bern—even if that now means supporting the 74-year-old senator’s ideas, rather than his campaign for president.
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