President Joe Biden speaks at the Asian Pacific American Congressional Institute's 30th annual gala, Tuesday, May 14, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
AAMER MADHANI (Associated Press)
WASHINGTON (AP) – President Joe Biden this week commemorated the 70th anniversary of the Supreme Court's decision that struck down institutionalized racial discrimination in public schools, naming plaintiffs and their families in a landmark case as white. Welcomed to the house.
Thursday's Oval Office visit commemorating the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision that desegregated schools comes as President Biden ramps up efforts to highlight his administration's commitment to racial equity. It is.
The president appealed to black voters in Atlanta and Milwaukee in two interviews on black radio this week, touting his record on jobs, health care and infrastructure and attacking Republican Donald Trump. And on Sunday, the president will deliver the commencement address at Morehouse College, a historically black college in Atlanta, and will speak at the NAACP gala in Detroit.
During Thursday's visit by litigants and their families, the conversation centered on the honor of the plaintiffs and the ongoing fight to strengthen education in Black communities, participants said.
Mr. Biden faces an uphill re-election battle in November as he seeks to repeat his 2020 success with Black voters, a key bloc in defeating Mr. Trump. But polling from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research during Biden's tenure reveals widespread disappointment with his performance as president, even among some of his most ardent supporters, including Black adults. It has become.
NAACP President Derrick Johnson, who participated in the Oval Office visit, said “the premise that there is a decline in black support” for Biden is unacceptable. “This election is not about Candidate A versus Candidate B. It's about a functioning democracy or something less.”
Among those attending the rally were Brown plaintiff John Stokes and Cheryl Brown Henderson, whose father Oliver Brown was the lead plaintiff in the Brown case.
The Brown decision invalidates an 1896 decision that institutionalized racial segregation in so-called “separate but equal” schools for black and white students, ruling that such accommodations are never equal. did.
Brown-Henderson said one of the participants asked the president to make May 17, the day the decision was made, a federal holiday. He said Biden also recognized the courage of the litigants.
“He recognized that the people here were taking a risk in joining this case in the 1950s and ’40s when Jim Crow was still rampant,” she said. . “Every time he spoke out against Jim Crow and racism, he was putting his life, livelihood, and home at risk. He thanked them for taking that risk.”
Biden's announcement last month that he had accepted an invitation to give a commencement address at Morehouse sparked peaceful student protests and calls for university officials to cancel the event over Biden's response to the war between Israel and Hamas. Ta.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that Biden recently sent senior adviser Stephen Benjamin to meet with Morehouse students and faculty.