Bernie Sanders keeps promise he made to Sandra Bland's mom

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It turns out Bernie Sanders met with Sandra Bland’s mother, Geneva Reed-Veal, and we never would have known about it if Rev. Hannah Bonner hadn’t blogged about the experience afterward.

Bonner and Reed-Veal were eating at Union Station in Washington when they ran into Sanders and invited him to sit with them. He agreed, and they began to chat.

“What happened to your daughter is inexcusable,” he told Bland’s mother. “We are broken, and this has exposed us.” He promised to continue to #SayHerName and even to mention her name at the upcoming CNN Democratic debate (and he did so).

Bonner went on to say that she “was completely blown away by the unexpectedness of it all, the sacredness of the moment, and the sincerity of all involved.”

She wrote in her blog, “We asked Senator Sanders if we could take a picture with him and he consented. He did not impose upon Ms. Geneva to ask for a picture of his own. He did not use the moment as an opportunity to promote his campaign. He took no record, he made no statement. He did not try to turn it into a publicity stunt. He simply made space for a sacred moment, and then let it pass without trying to gain anything from it.”

“For that, I respect him. For that, I am grateful. That choice may not have made him a very good politician, but it made him a better man.”