Before Bernie Sanders, There Was Zeidler, a Religious Socialist

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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/02/us/before-sanders-there-was-frank-zeidler-a-religious-socialist.html?_r=0

MILWAUKEE — One night in April 1948, when Bernie Sanders was a 6-year-old boy in Brooklyn, Frank Zeidler was elected mayor of Milwaukee on the Socialist Party line. He would hold the office for a dozen years. Until Mr. Sanders undertook his presidential campaign, Mr. Zeidler had been the last prominent and successful Socialist politician in America.

While Mr. Sanders is a secular Jew, though, Mayor Zeidler was a devoted Christian, who remained active in the Redeemer Lutheran Church here until his death in 2006 at age 93. As Mr. Sanders brings his quest for a “political revolution” into the Wisconsin primary on Tuesday, Mr. Zeidler’s legacy, both religious and ideological, lives on in a series of public conversations held by his lifelong church.

Perhaps it did not qualify as revolutionary, but on a balmy evening last month, the line of attendees for a discussion on the topic “Interrupting Racism” stretched out the back door of the Redeemer church. Hobbling on canes, hoisting backpacks and bike helmets, clad in hoodies, kente cloth and down vests, they represented a convergence of races, ages and political beliefs that is unusual in one of the nation’s most segregated metropolitan areas.

Eventually, more than 150 people formed discussion circles of five or six throughout the church’s rooms. For 90 minutes, they spoke, but they mostly listened about one another’s encounters with racial hate. In one group, a middle-aged white man admitted his lasting shame at not confronting a boss who made a racial slur about a black employee.