Biden’s upcoming graduation speech rocks Morehouse College, a center of black politics and culture

ATLANTA (AP) — When he delivers the commencement address at Morehouse College, President Joe Biden will have his most direct engagement with students since the start of the year. Israel-Hamas War at the center of black politics and culture.

Morehouse is located in Atlanta, the largest city in the swing state of Georgia, which Biden replaced with President Donald Trump four years ago. Biden’s speech Sunday will come as the Democrat tries to make inroads with a key, symbolic constituency — young black men — and repair the diverse coalition that elected him to the White House.

The announcement of last month’s speech sparked peaceful protests and calls for the university administration to reverse Biden’s handling of the war between Israel and Hamas. Some students at Morehouse and other historically black campuses in Atlanta say they vehemently oppose Biden and the decision to have him speak, reflecting the tension around Biden. faces in many communities of color and with young voters nationwide.

Morehouse President David Thomas said in an interview that the emotions stirred up by the speech made it all the more important for Biden to speak.

“In many ways, these are the moments that Morehouse was born for,” he said. “We need a place in this country that can contain the tensions that threaten to divide us. If Morehouse can’t contain these tensions, then no place can.

The speech comes at a critical time for Biden in his rematch of the general elections against Trump, a Republican. Biden lacks support among Black voters and people under 30, groups that played a key role in his narrow 2020 victories in several battleground states, including Georgia.

Fifty-five percent of black adults approved of how Biden is handling his job as president, according to an AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in March, a figure far lower than at the start of his presidency. In total, 32% of 18-29 year olds voted in favor of the same survey.

“This is a global catastrophe in Gaza, and for Joe Biden to pander to our votes is politically blackface,” said Morehouse sophomore Anwar Karim, who urged Thomas and commissioners to the school to rescind Biden’s invitation.

Recent scenes on American campuses reflect many young voters’ objections to Israeli attacks in Gaza. Biden has supported Israel since Hamas militants killed more than 1,200 Israelis and took hundreds of hostages on October 7. arms shipments to the longtime US ally, even as Biden pleads for a ceasefire, criticizes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s tactics and the death toll in Gaza passes 35,000 people, many of them of women and children.

Many young black people identified with the Palestinian cause and sometimes drew parallels between Israeli rule over the Palestinian territories and the now-defunct apartheid system in South Africa and abolished Jim Crow laws in the United States . Israel rejects claims that its system of laws for Palestinians constitutes an apartheid.

“I think the president will do himself good if he doesn’t dodge this, especially when you think about the audience he’ll be speaking to directly and the nation,” Thomas said.

Sunday’s speech will mark the culmination of a four-day period in which Biden will focus on Black communities. Thursday, Biden met in private with plaintiffs from Brown v. School Board case that outlawed legal segregation of American public schools. The next day, Biden will address an NAACP rally commemorating the 70th anniversary of that historic decision.

Former U.S. Rep. Cedric Richmond, a longtime Biden ally who helped negotiate his speech at Morehouse, said he understood the students’ concerns but stressed that Biden had pressured Netanyahu and supported a solution two states for Israelis and Palestinians. Trump, meanwhile, effectively abandoned this long-standing US position and declared that Israel should “finish the problem” in Gaza.

“It’s nowhere in the conversation,” Richmond said.

The debate over Biden’s speech at Morehouse reflected a fundamental tension at historically black colleges and universities, both of which are dedicated to social justice and black advancement and are led by administrators committed to maintaining order .

“We seem like a very conservative institution sometimes,” Thomas said. “On the one hand, the institution must be the stable object where we find ourselves today in the world. »

But, he added, the university’s long-term goal is to “support our students in their efforts to create a better world.”

The blowback began even before Thomas publicly announced Biden’s arrival. Teachers sent leaders a letter of concern, prompting an online town hall. Alumni gathered several hundred signatures urging Thomas to rescind Biden’s invitation. The petition called the invitation antithetical to the pacifism that Martin Luther King Jr., a Morehouse alumnus, expressed when he opposed the Vietnam War.

Some students note that leaders at Morehouse and other HBCUs did not always support King and other civil rights activists who are revered today. Morehouse, for example, expelled actor Samuel L. Jackson in 1969 after he and other students detained Morehouse administrators, including King’s father, in a campus building as part of a demand for changes in the curriculum and the appointment of more black administrators.

Students recently staged two protests at the Atlanta University Center (AUC), a consortium of historically black institutions in Atlanta that includes Morehouse. Chants included “Joe Biden, f— off!” and “Biden, Biden, you can’t hide.” We accuse you of genocide,” accompanied by curses addressed to Thomas.

“Our institution supports genocide and we turn a blind eye,” said Nyla Broddie, a student at Spelman College, which is part of the AUC. Brodie argued that Biden’s Israel policy should be seen in the broader context of U.S. foreign policy and domestic police violence against Black Americans.

Thomas said he “feels very positive about graduating” and that “not a single one” of Morehouse’s seniors — there are about 500 at the all-male private school — chose not to participate. “That’s not to say that feelings about what’s happening in Gaza don’t resonate with people in our community,” Thomas said.

Thomas met privately with students, as did several administrators. The Morehouse Alumni Association organized a student town hall, featuring at least one veteran of the Atlanta Student Movement, a civil rights-era organization.

But the message was consistent: refusing to invite the President of the United States was not an option. When students asked about endowment investments in Israel and U.S. defense companies, they said they were told the amounts involved were negligible, a few hundred thousand dollars in pooled funds. placement.

“I think people are excited” about Biden’s arrival, said Georgia Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, senior pastor at King’s Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. Warnock said Biden was ‘in a great position’ to talk about it student debt reliefincreased federal support for HBCUs and other accomplishments.

HBCUs have not experienced crackdowns from law enforcement like those at Columbia University in New York and the University of California in Los Angeles. However, Morehouse and AUC have witnessed peaceful protests, petitions, and private meetings among campus stakeholders. Xavier University, a historically black university in Louisiana, withdrew its opening invitation for UN Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfieldciting the students’ desire “to enjoy a disturbance-free commencement ceremony.”

It remains to be seen whether Morehouse graduates or other students will protest Biden or disrupt the ceremony. Leaders of the student protest say they are not aware of any plans for indoor demonstrations at the start of the school year.

Thomas, the Morehouse president, promised that forms of early protest that “do not disrupt ceremonies” will not result in any sanctions for students.

But he also pledged to end the program sooner if disruptions worsened.

“We will not create – on the Morehouse campus – a national media moment,” he said, “where our failure to manage these tensions leads to people being taken out of a Morehouse ceremony in restraints zipped by the police.”