Bernie Sanders' classmates say that isn't him in that civil rights photo

A purported young Bernie Sanders addressing a group of students

(Image credit: Twitter.com/Mediaite)

published 12 November 2015

There is no denying that Bernie Sanders was an outspoken civil rights advocate when he was attending the University of Chicago in the early 1960s. What's less certain is if a photo of Sanders addressing other students at a sit-in he attended is actually a photo of Sanders and not someone else. In fact, a handful of alums who were Sanders' contemporaries in college have spoken out to claim that the man in the picture probably isn't Sanders at all, but instead another classmate, Bruce Rappaport, who died in 2006. Take a look:

"I can certainly recognize it as Bruce Rappaport, partly because of the curvature of his spine, and I see that tall thin look from the side," one classmate told Time. Another, Bruce Stark, who was roommates with Rappaport for two years and was his best man at his first wedding, insisted that, "The way he's holding the book there and his left hand — that was a Bruce gesture, and the hair." The archivist at the University of Chicago agrees, saying she believes the picture shows Rappaport, not Sanders. The school is continuing to look into the image in the hopes of making a more certain identification.

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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.

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