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Monday, February 24, 2025

Biden: Americans should ‘pay attention’ to MLK’s legacy

by

770 days ago
20230115
President Joe Biden, centre, holds hands with Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., a senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church, second from left, and Keisha Lance Bottoms, senior adviser to Biden for public engagement and former Atlanta Mayor, second from right, after Biden spoke at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Sunday, Jan. 15, 2023, during a service honouring Martin Luther King Jr. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

President Joe Biden, centre, holds hands with Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., a senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church, second from left, and Keisha Lance Bottoms, senior adviser to Biden for public engagement and former Atlanta Mayor, second from right, after Biden spoke at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Sunday, Jan. 15, 2023, during a service honouring Martin Luther King Jr. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Pres­i­dent Joe Biden made a his­tor­i­cal pil­grim­age Sun­day to “Amer­i­ca’s free­dom church” to mark Mar­tin Luther King Jr.’s birth­day, say­ing democ­ra­cy was at a per­ilous mo­ment and that the civ­il rights leader’s life and lega­cy “show us the way and we should pay at­ten­tion.”

As the first sit­ting pres­i­dent to de­liv­er a Sun­day morn­ing ser­mon at King’s Ebenez­er Bap­tist Church, Biden cit­ed the telling ques­tion that King him­self once asked of the na­tion.

“He said, ‘Where do we go from here?’” Biden said from the pul­pit. “Well, my mes­sage to this na­tion on this day is we go for­ward, we go to­geth­er, when we choose democ­ra­cy over au­toc­ra­cy, a beloved com­mu­ni­ty over chaos, when we choose be­liev­ers and the dreams, to be do­ers, to be un­afraid, al­ways keep­ing the faith.”

In a di­vid­ed coun­try on­ly two years re­moved from a vi­o­lent in­sur­rec­tion, “the bat­tle for the soul of this na­tion is peren­ni­al. It’s a con­stant strug­gle ... be­tween hope and fear, kind­ness and cru­el­ty, jus­tice and in­jus­tice,” Biden told con­gre­gants, elect­ed of­fi­cials and dig­ni­taries.

He spoke out against those who “traf­fic in racism, ex­trem­ism, in­sur­rec­tion” and said the strug­gle to pro­tect democ­ra­cy was play­ing out in cour­t­hous­es and bal­lot box­es, protests and oth­er av­enues. ”At our best, the Amer­i­can promise wins out. … But I don’t need to tell you that we’re not al­ways at our best. We’re fal­li­ble. We fail and fall.”

The stop at Ebenez­er comes at a del­i­cate mo­ment for Biden af­ter At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Mer­rick Gar­land on Thurs­day an­nounced the ap­point­ment of a spe­cial coun­sel to in­ves­ti­gate how the pres­i­dent han­dled clas­si­fied doc­u­ments af­ter leav­ing the vice pres­i­den­cy in 2017. The White House on Sat­ur­day re­vealed that ad­di­tion­al clas­si­fied records were found at Biden’s home near Wilm­ing­ton, Delaware.

In in­tro­duc­ing Biden, the church’s se­nior pas­tor, De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Sen. Raphael Warnock not­ed that the pres­i­dent was “a de­vout Catholic” for whom “this Bap­tist ser­vice might be a lit­tle bit ram­bunc­tious and an­i­mat­ed. But I saw him over there clap­ping his hands.”

King, whom Warnock called “the great­est Amer­i­can prophet of the 20th cen­tu­ry,” served as co-pas­tor from 1960 un­til he was as­sas­si­nat­ed in 1968.

Warnock, like many bat­tle­ground state De­moc­rats who won re-elec­tion in 2022, kept his dis­tance dur­ing the cam­paign from Biden as the pres­i­dent’s ap­proval rat­ing lagged and the in­fla­tion rate climbed.

But with Biden be­gin­ning to turn his at­ten­tion to­ward an ex­pect­ed 2024 re-elec­tion ef­fort, Geor­gia is go­ing to get plen­ty of his at­ten­tion.

In 2020, Biden man­aged to win Geor­gia as well as close­ly con­test­ed Michi­gan and Penn­syl­va­nia, where Black votes made up a dis­pro­por­tion­ate part of the De­mo­c­ra­t­ic elec­torate. Turn­ing out Black vot­ers in those states will be es­sen­tial to Biden’s 2024 hopes.

The White House has tried to pro­mote Biden’s agen­da in mi­nor­i­ty com­mu­ni­ties. The White House has cit­ed ef­forts to en­cour­age states to take eq­ui­ty in­to ac­count for pub­lic works projects as they spend mon­ey from the ad­min­is­tra­tion’s $1 tril­lion in­fra­struc­ture bill. The ad­min­is­tra­tion al­so has act­ed to end sen­tenc­ing dis­par­i­ty be­tween crack and pow­der co­caine of­fens­es, scrap­ping a pol­i­cy wide­ly seen as racist.

The ad­min­is­tra­tion al­so high­lights Biden’s work to di­ver­si­fy the fed­er­al ju­di­cia­ry, in­clud­ing his ap­point­ment of Jus­tice Ke­tan­ji Brown Jack­son as the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court and the con­fir­ma­tion of 11 Black women judges to fed­er­al ap­peals courts — more than those in­stalled to those pow­er­ful courts un­der all pre­vi­ous pres­i­dents com­bined.

King, who was born on Jan. 15, 1929, was killed at age 39. He helped dri­ve pas­sage of the Civ­il Rights Act of 1964 and Vot­ing Rights Act of 1965. Mem­bers of King’s fam­i­ly at­tend­ed the ser­vice, in­clud­ing his 95-year-old sis­ter, Chris­tine King Far­ris.

The pres­i­dent plans to be in Wash­ing­ton on Mon­day to speak at the Na­tion­al Ac­tion Net­work’s an­nu­al break­fast on the King hol­i­day.

___

Sto­ry by AAMER MAD­HANI | As­so­ci­at­ed Press.
As­so­ci­at­ed Press writer Bill Bar­row in At­lanta con­tributed to this re­port.

US President Joe BidenUnited States of AmericaInstagram


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