President Biden is scheduled to give a commencement speech to Morehouse College graduates on Sunday. He will be standing directly in front of young people. President Donald J. Trump.
The commencement address at a historically black all-male university in Georgia, a state that Biden narrowly upset four years ago, will be an opportunity for the president to compare his character to that of Trump. He often uses themes of freedom and democracy to explain what he believes is at stake in November.
On Saturday, shortly after arriving in Atlanta, Biden gave a preview of sorts to a group of supporters, including many Morehouse alumni. He said the election is not a contest between two candidates, but a choice between defending democracy and continuing to set back its ideals.
“It's not about me. The same goes for alternatives,” Biden told the audience at Mary Mack's Tea Room, a local business run by Morehouse alumni. “My opponent is not a good loser, but he is a loser. Our democracy is really at stake.”
At a campaign reception shortly thereafter, Mr. Biden warned that Mr. Trump represented an “unlimited” threat to the country's future. “We can't let this man become president,” he added. “We have to win this race, not just for me, but for America.”
After the Morehouse speech, Biden is scheduled to head to Detroit to speak at a dinner hosted by the NAACP. Sunday's schedule, which includes Air Force One hitting two battleground states within eight hours, This is the clearest sign yet that he is serious about coming back. These are the voters who propelled him to the White House in 2020, and he will need to win their support again if he is to remain president.
According to the Pew Research Center, 95% of Black women and 87% of Black men voted for Biden in 2020. But as of April, only 55% of black voters told Pew that they approved of his job performance. A recent poll by Ipsos and the Washington Post found that 62% of Black Americans plan to vote in 2024, down from 74% in 2020.
So Biden entered the weekend prepared to brandish his credentials.
On Friday, the president referred to himself as a “life member of the NAACP” and touted the number of black doctors, engineers, teachers and dentists who have graduated from historically black colleges and universities. Biden then linked his judicial appointments to his own record in certain high-level positions in particular: The Vice President is 100% black. I got it. “
Founded in Atlanta in 1867, Morehouse is a school steeped in tradition. Students spend years working toward becoming the embodiment of a Morehouseman: well-traveled, well-read, and actively involved in social activities. As the alma mater of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., it also has a proud history of protests for social justice.
Biden's visit to Morehouse has drawn opposition from some faculty, alumni and students who have expressed anger at the U.S. government's support for the Gaza war and Israel's role there. The tensions attracted so much attention that the school's president, David A. Thomas, publicly warned that he would cancel the graduation ceremony if any graduates yelled at the president or disrupted the event.
In an interview with CNN on Thursday, Thomas said various forms of “silent protest” are permitted as long as they “do not act in a way that deprives others from participating in, consuming and celebrating this moment.”
Mr. Biden and his advisers have been debating for months how to increase his popularity among black men. Some Morehouse students and alumni have warned him in recent weeks that graduation ceremonies are not the place to score political points. However, some people want to hear him explain his decisions, including on the Gaza issue, which they feel are behind his low approval ratings and growing sense of alienation.
Patrick A. Jackson, a 2011 Morehouse graduate, said he will be watching the president's speech closely, saying he hopes the president will pay close attention and address the elephant in the room. “It's like saying, 'This isn't easy, but this is why I'm here and this is what I want.'”