Jan. 8 (UPI) — President Joe Biden will deliver a speech Monday at Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., where nine Black parishioners were gunned down by a White supremacist nearly nine years ago.
Days after an impassioned speech in Pennsylvania in which he rebuked former President Donald Trump, Biden will underscore the critical need to uphold democratic values as a pivotal strategy in the ongoing battle against hate, White supremacy and extremism — a major theme that was highlighted during his 2021 inauguration speech.
Biden will depart New Castle, Del., in the morning and arrive in Charleston around 11:15 a.m. EST. The speech at the church is scheduled to begin at 12:30 p.m.
Biden “will remind the American people that the same hate that plagued the Mother Emanuel Church years ago hasn’t gone away — and it is incumbent on our elected officials to do their part in rooting out hate, extremism and division in our country,” a campaign official told CNN.
Biden plans to use the visit to draw a contrast between his campaign’s message on racial justice from those of Republican presidential candidates including former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who last month declined to cite slavery as a driving force for the Civil War.
Biden’s remarks could add pressure on Haley to clarify her previous support for the Confederate flag when she was governor before the church massacre changed her stance on the issue.
He was also expected to call attention to Trump’s comments in a Dec. 16 rally that immigrants from Africa, Asia, and South America were “poisoning the blood” of the nation.
The Biden campaign continues to emphasize Trump’s “flirtation with White supremacy” while warning of his grave threat to democracy as demonstrated by his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.
Biden was expected to echo some of the same themes that emerged in his Valley Forge, Pa., speech last Friday, where Biden implored the crowd to reject Trump.
“The choice is clear: Donald’s Trump campaign is about him, not America, not you … Donald Trump’s campaign is obsessed with the past, not the future. He’s willing to sacrifice our democracy. Our campaign is different … our campaign is about America. It’s about you … it’s about the future that we’re going to continue to build together.”
Biden was vice president when the massacre occurred on June 17, 2015, less than a month after his son, Joseph “Beau” Biden III, died of brain cancer. Biden went to Charleston more than a week later to embrace the community that was still in mourning.
Nine years later, Biden returns to the hallowed site as a powerful reminder of the consequences of extremism.
Biden’s visit aims to present South Carolina voters with a stark choice more three years after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, with Biden positioning himself as a steadfast defender of democracy while Trump faces accusations of leveraging “all of his power to systematically dismantle and destroy our democracy.”
Charleston County Democratic Party Chair Sam Skardon told USA Today said the vision would show the clash “between Donald Trump, who is facing criminal charges for violently rejecting the results of a democratic election, and President Biden, who is working to expand voting rights and strengthen our democratic institutions.”
South Carolina is also the site of the Democratic National Convention later this summer.
With the 2024 election cycle days away, and Biden’s first electoral test in the Feb. 3 Democratic primary in South Carolina, the incumbent was seeking to reestablish himself with Black voters who had seemingly grown apathetic since the 2020 election.
Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., told CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday — after a meeting with the president — that Biden must re-engage with Black voters as he has demonstrated effectiveness on the economy but also failed to secure congressional protections for voting and civil rights, such as the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.
“We have not been able to break through that MAGA wall in order to get to people exactly what this president has done,” Clyburn said.
“It is one thing for people to see you. It is also one thing for people to hear you. But the most effective thing is for people to feel you. That is what is effective,” Clyburn said. “That’s why he’s effective. People feel Joe Biden.”
By going to the Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, Biden was making a symbolic move, while delving into a deeply emotional chapter of the nation’s collective conscience, while making a heartfelt effort to reconnect with Black support that appears to be dissipating three years into his term.
In recent weeks, Biden has worked to call attention to policies that have benefited the nation’s Black citizens as he faced criticism from progressives that he had not fully addressed the issue of reparations since taking office.
In December, he traveled to Milwaukee, Wis., to highlight the growth of Black business ownership under his administration and to call attention to federal investments in Black-owned firms to remove lead pipes.
Following the speech, the president is scheduled to depart Charleston at 4:30 p.m., and fly to Dallas in the evening and visit Concord Church to pay respects to late Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson, who died on New Year’s Eve at age 89.
From there, the president will return to Washington aboard Air Force One and arrive back at the White House after midnight.
