President Joe Biden is expected to deliver a commencement address at Morehouse College on Sunday morning, a critical opportunity for an election-year appearance in front of a Black audience and his first direct contact with college students since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.
Biden intends to use his speech to “focus on the students” and “address their concerns,” according to a White House source who spoke to NBC News. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, Biden sees his address as “an opportunity to lift up and to give an important message to our future leaders.”
“He’s been working on these remarks for the past couple days, I can assure you, with his senior advisers. He’s taking this incredibly seriously,” Jean-Pierre stated. “It will meet the moment. And I think you will hear directly from the president on how he sees obviously the future of this country, and also the community that they represent.”
Following his Saturday morning preparations for the major address, Biden was met at Atlanta’s airport by a group of former Morehouse students, with one of them jokingly putting his arm over his shoulder. Later, he made a brief speech to approximately 50 supporters at Mary Mac’s Tea Room, a Black-owned eatery that first opened about 80 years ago.
The speech is a part of President Biden’s ongoing appeal to his Black constituents, whose support has been dwindling since their resounding backing helped propel him into the White House in 2020. Biden will also be speaking at an NAACP banquet in Detroit later on Sunday.
According to the Pew Research Center, 95% of Black women and 87% of Black men supported Joe Biden in the 2020 election. However, just 55% of Black voters indicated to Pew in April that they were satisfied with his work. According to a recent Ipsos and The Washington Post poll, 62 percent of Black Americans said they intended to cast a ballot in 2024, compared to 74 percent in 2020.
However, Biden’s visit to Morehouse was met with disapproval by some professors, alumni, and students, who cited their outrage at the conflict in Gaza and the US government’s backing of Israel’s involvement in it. The president of the university, David A. Thomas, has thus openly threatened to halt the ceremony if graduates yell at him or interfere with the ceremony due to the intense tension.
Data collected by CNN shows that between October 7 and May 3, there were over 1,360 student demonstrations in schools around the nation. 97% of the protests have been nonviolent, however a few rare incidents of violence and property damage have drawn national notice. These incidents culminated in late April and early May when Columbia University students took over several university buildings, police forcibly dispersed a pro-Palestinian encampment at the University of Texas in Austin, and counter protesters at UCLA attacked a pro-Palestinian encampment for hours on end.
