Biden will speak at Morehouse commencement, an election-year spotlight in front of Black voters
Source: ABC News/AP
April 23, 2024, 12:15 PM
ATLANTA -- President Joe Biden will be the commencement speaker at Morehouse College in Georgia, giving the Democrat a key election-year spotlight on one of the nation’s preeminent historically Black campuses as he works to shore up the racially diverse coalition that propelled him to the Oval Office.
The White House confirmed Tuesday that Biden would speak May 19 at the alma mater of civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr., and then address the graduating class at the United States Military Academy at West Point on May 25.
Polls have suggested Biden has work to do generate the same levels of Black support they won in 2020, especially among younger voters, and his appearance at Morehouse could be greeted with some form of protest. NBC News has reported that administrators are concerned that some faculty and students might organize demonstrations around Biden's visit. Biden has increasingly encountered protests this year, mostly from progressives who assert that he is too supportive of Israel in its war with Hamas.
Biden's speech will mark the second consecutive spring that Biden has spoken to the graduating class of a historically Black school. In 2023, the president delivered the commencement address at Howard University. The Washington, D.C., school is the alma mater of Vice President Kamala Harris, the first nonwhite woman to hold that office. Morehouse, a private all-male school that is part of the multi-campus Atlanta University Center, also is the alma mater of Sen. Raphael Warnock, Georgia's first Black U.S. senator.
Read more: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/biden-speak-morehouse-commencement-election-year-spotlight-front-109536560
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