President Joe Biden, for the second time in less than two months, is set to visit a hallowed space for Black Americans as he seeks to shore up support among a key constituency ahead of a planned reelection bid.
(Bloomberg) — President Joe Biden, for the second time in less than two months, is set to visit a hallowed space for Black Americans as he seeks to shore up support among a key constituency ahead of a planned reelection bid.
Biden, who is expected to announce his 2024 run in the coming weeks, is set to speak Sunday in Selma, Alabama, to mark the 58th anniversary of “Bloody Sunday,” when White state troopers attacked voting-rights demonstrators on the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
It is Biden’s latest attempt to solidify backing from Black voters, whose support helped resuscitate his flagging bid for the Democratic nomination in 2020 and deliver key swing states such as Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania on Election Day.
Biden spoke from the pulpit of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta to mark Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday in January, and he backed changes to the Democratic primary calendar that make South Carolina — where support from Black voters helped revive his 2020 campaign — the first state to vote. The reshuffle, which also moves Georgia ahead of Super Tuesday, will elevate Black voters’ impact in future races and could play in Biden’s favor in 2024.
Taken together, the moves show that Biden — who carried 87% of the Black vote in 2020 — recognizes the importance that key Democratic voting bloc will play in his upcoming bid for a second term.
However, Biden is facing criticism that he’s fallen short on his campaign promises. He has been stymied in his efforts to pass new voting-rights and police reform legislation. With Republicans in charge of the House, there is hardly any chance Democratic proposals to expand access to the ballot will make it into law before 2024.
And this week, the Supreme Court weighed whether to strike down the president’s student-loan forgiveness program, which is tailored to offer additional savings to low-income students and has been a priority of civil rights groups.
Congresswoman Yvette Clarke, a Democrat from Brooklyn and vice chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, praised Biden for standing up to “targeted attacks” against Blacks and building strong ties with the caucus on carrying out laws that create jobs and opportunities for Blacks.
“I look forward to our continued efforts to advance racial equity and inclusion,” she said in emailed comments.
Yet Biden’s approval rating among Black voters is in decline, falling from 78% in a January 2022 Quinnipiac poll to 61% in February. In the newer Quinnipiac poll, 28% of Black voters had an unfavorable opinion of him. An October Morning Consult poll indicated that Biden’s approval fell to 43% last year among Black voters, only a slightly higher average than for voters overall.
During his speech last month in Atlanta, Biden reminded congregants of his successful appointment of Ketanji Brown Jackson, who in April became the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court.
“It took just one generation, from segregation to the Supreme Court of the United States,” Biden, said, adding, “As Dr. King said, ‘Give us the ballot, and we will place judges on the bench…who will do justly.’ And we are. That’s the promise of America — where change is hard, but necessary.”
Black History
Last month, the president hosted a White House screening of the movie “Till,” which depicts the life of Mamie Till-Mobley, whose son Emmett Till, a Black teenager, was lynched in Mississippi in 1955.
“We hosted the screening because it’s important to say from the White House for the entire country to hear: History matters. History matters. And Black history matters,” Biden said at a White House reception honoring Black History Month.
Biden’s visit also comes as some parts of the GOP seek to exacerbate racial tensions in the wake of the Norfolk Southern Corp. train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, arguing that Biden has forsaken White, rural Americans.
Progressive Democrats, meanwhile, have criticized Biden for saying he won’t veto a measure overturning a District of Columbia law that reduces required penalties for some violent crimes such as carjackings and robberies.
The trip to Selma will be Biden’s first as president, a month and a half after a deadly tornado struck the city, damaging hundreds of homes and killing nine people in Alabama and Georgia.
“If you think about how the president got involved in politics, it was very much connected to the civil rights movement. So this is important to the president,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Thursday.
Jean-Pierre called Bloody Sunday “a part of our history that we should just not forget.”
Biden spoke during his 2020 election bid at Selma’s Brown Chapel AME Church, two days before Alabama voted in the Super Tuesday primary election. He warned about the state of the country with then-President Donald Trump — who has already launched his 2024 comeback bid — in the White House.
“We’ve been dragged backward and we’ve lost ground. We’ve seen all too clearly that if you give hate any breathing room it comes back,” Biden said in 2020.
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