President Joe Biden on Sunday told a graduating class at Morehouse College that he heard their voices of protest over the war between Israel and Hamas, and that the scenes of conflict in Gaza were heartbreaking.
“I support peaceful, peaceful protest,” he told the students, some of whom wore keffiyehs around their shoulders over their black graduation gowns. “Your voices need to be heard, and I promise I do.”
The president told the crowd “it is a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, which is why I called for an immediate ceasefire to stop the fighting” and the return of hostages who were taken when Hamas attacked Israel on October 7. At the end of his speech, which also reflected on American democracy and his role in protecting it, it was a direct acknowledgment by American students of the campus protests that had swept across the country.
Morehouse announces that Biden will be the ceremony's official speaker It has sparked some backlash among school faculty and supporters who oppose Biden's handling of the war. Some Morehouse alumni circulated a letter online condemning school administrators for inviting Biden and asking for signatures to pressure Morehouse President David Thomas to rescind it.
The letter claimed that Biden's approach toward Israel amounts to support for genocide in Gaza and is inconsistent with the pacifism expressed by Martin Luther King Jr., Morehouse's most famous alumnus.
The Hamas attack on southern Israel killed 1,200 people. The Israeli attack killed more than 35,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to local health officials.
Some members of the graduating class showed their support for the Palestinians in Gaza by tying the keffiyeh around their shoulders over their black graduation gowns. One student wrapped himself in the Palestinian flag. On the podium behind the president, academics raised the flag of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The country has been plunged into an ongoing civil war that has plunged the country into violence and displaced millions of people. Many racial justice advocates have called for greater attention in the United States to be paid to the conflict as well as American assistance in ending the violence.
“Thank God for this ‘wake up’ season of 2024 that is in tune with the spirit of the times and the spirit of the times,” Pastor Claybone Lea Jr. said during the prayer at the commencement.
The valedictorian, DeAngelo Jeremiah Fletcher, said at the conclusion of his speech that it was his duty to speak about the war in Gaza, and that it was important to acknowledge what Palestinians and Israelis alike had suffered.
“From our homes, we are watching an unprecedented number of civilians mourn the loss of men, women and children,” he said, calling for the release of all hostages. “My position as a Morehouse man, and indeed as a human being, is to call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.”
Biden stood up and shook his hand after Fletcher finished.
The speech, a separate address Biden will deliver later Sunday in the Midwest, is part of a wave of outreach to Black voters by the president, who has seen his support among those voters decline since their strong support helped catapult him to the Oval Office. In 2020.
After speaking at Morehouse in Atlanta, Biden will travel to Detroit to speak at the NAACP dinner.
Georgia and Michigan are among a handful of states that will help decide an expected November rematch between Biden and former Republican President Donald Trump. Biden narrowly won Georgia and Michigan in 2020 and needs to repeat that — while boosted by strong black voter turnout in both cities.
Biden spent last weekend reaching out to Black voters. He met with the plaintiffs and relatives of those involved Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision that banned racial segregation in public schools. He also met members of the “Divine Nine” black fraternities and sororities and spoke with members of the Little Rock Nine, who helped integrate a public school in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957.
In Detroit, Biden was scheduled to visit a Black-owned small business before delivering the keynote address at the NAACP's Freedom Fund dinner, which traditionally draws thousands of attendees. The speech gives Biden an opportunity to reach thousands of people in Wayne County, an area that has historically voted overwhelmingly Democratic but has shown signs of resistance to his re-election bid.
Wayne County also has one of the largest Arab-American populations in the country, most of whom are in the United States City of Dearborn. The leaders there were at the forefront The “Uncommitted” effort received more than 100,000 votes in the state's Democratic primary and has spread across the country.
A protest march and march against Biden's visit is scheduled for Sunday afternoon in Dearborn. Another protest is expected later that evening outside Huntington Place, the venue of the dinner.