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Thousands of Bernie Sanders supporters lined the streets of New York on Saturday in a rally to encourage Democrats to vote for the Vermont Senator, over rival Hillary Clinton, in the upcoming state primary.
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The People For Bernie Sanders 2016 group, who organized the gathering, say the demonstration is the largest get out and vote (GOTV) movement in U.S. history with scores marching well into the afternoon.
The crowd walked across Manhattan with many holding aloft banners and wearing Sanders t-shirts.
The march seeks to drum up support for Sanders ahead of the April 19 New York primary where a whopping 291 delegates are up for grabs.
Sanders has won eight out of the last nine election contests and many say that momentum is on his side ahead of the crucial vote.
The lawmaker is back in New York after a flying visit of the Vatican where he met Pope Francis and spoke on economic justice at a Roman Catholic Church's encyclical on Thursday.
"That situation is worse today. In the year 2016, the top 1 percent of the people on this planet own more wealth than the bottom 99 percent," the self-described democratic socialist said.
"At a time when so few have so much, and so many have so little, we must reject the foundations of this contemporary economy as immoral and unsustainable," he said.
In other parts of his speech, Sanders decried "reckless financial deregulation," including rules on political party financing, that he said had "established a system in which billionaires can buy elections" in exchange for laws that would make them only richer.
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