ATLANTA — The center of the 2020 presidential race will be Atlanta this weekend as a youth leadership conference kicked off on Friday and is still set to feature Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren in the coming days.
The Young Leaders Conference is being held over the next two days at the Georgia International Convention Center. The topics that the presidential forums plan to address are issues impacting black voters - gun violence, mass incarceration, immigration, and other topics.
The conference’s website said it “emphasizes ministry, media and the marketplace” and draws 5,000 delegates - mostly black Millennials - from various spheres of influence. It said it offers six tracks that tailor the experience for “pastors/preachers, entrepreneurs, singles, creatives, women in ministry and ministry families.”
The conference featured forums with Booker, Pete Buttigieg and Julian Castro on Friday.
"Promises have been made to black Americans. And they have not been kept," Buttigieg told the crowd.
Castro said he would root out white nationalism.
"The first thing that we need to do is get the white nationalist that is currently in the Oval Office out of the Oval Office," Castro said to cheers.
And Corey Booker, a descendant of preachers, preached.
"Christ has not strengthened you to sit on the couch," he said. "This is not a spectator sport."
He also spoke Friday night at The Gathering Spot in Atlanta. A hot topic there was climate change.
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On Saturday, Sanders and Warren are expected to make appearances.
The conference will be streaming forums on its Facebook page.
In most recent polls, Sanders and Warren have been jockeying for second place in the Democratic primary race behind Joe Biden.
In one NBC News/SurveyMonkey July poll, Warren was third among Georgia voters at 13 percent, Sanders fourth at 12 percent and Buttigieg fifth at 5 percent.
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