ATLANTA (AP) – President Joe Biden will be the commencement speaker at Morehouse College in Georgia, giving the Democrat a major election-year spotlight on one of the nation’s most prominent historically black campuses as he works to strengthen the racially diverse coalition that propelled him to the Oval Office.
The White House confirmed Tuesday that Biden would speak on May 19 at the alma mater of civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. and then address the graduating class of the United States Military Academy at West Point on May 25.
Polls suggest Biden has work to do to generate the same levels of black support he garnered in 2020, especially among younger voters, and his appearance in Morehouse could be greeted with some form of protest. NBC News reported that administrators are concerned that some teachers and students may organize demonstrations around Biden’s visit. Biden has increasingly encountered protests this year, mainly from progressives who say he is too supportive of Israel in its war with Hamas.
Biden’s speech will mark the second consecutive spring that Biden spoke to the graduating class of a historically black school. In 2023, the president delivered the graduation speech at Howard University. The Washington, D.C. school is the vice president’s alma mater Kamala Harris, the first non-white woman to hold this position. Morehouse, an all-male private school that is part of the multi-campus Atlanta University Center, is also the senator’s alma mater. Rafael Warnockthe first black U.S. senator from Georgia.
Warnock celebrated Biden’s selection, avoiding any potential unhappiness in the Morehouse community.
“I could not be more thrilled and honored to see President Biden return to our great state,” Warnock said in a statement. “I know the president will have a timely, moving and forward-looking message for the men of Morehouse.”
A significant drop in black participation would not be necessary for Biden to cede several states to former President Donald Trump in his revenge.
Biden won Georgia by fewer than 12,000 votes over Trump, out of about 5 million votes cast. The combined enrollment at Morehouse and the adjacent schools that make up the Atlanta University Center is about 9,000 students. Biden’s margin in Wisconsin, where Black voters in greater Milwaukee are an anchor of Democratic vote totals statewide, was less than 21,000 votes. The president had more comfortable margins in Michigan and Pennsylvania, but he still cannot afford to lose black support in the Detroit and Philadelphia metro areas.
Among the states Trump won, Biden is targeting North Carolina, which has a notable population of black college students. Trump’s margin in the state was around 75,000 votes.
The administration and re-election campaign has targeted HBCUs since Biden took office in January 2021. Harris and Cabinet members have spoken at several campuses. Among other achievements and policy priorities, they touted increases in federal financial support for HBCUs; Biden’s efforts to forgive up to $10,000 in student loan burden per borrower and increase Pell Grants for low-income students; investments in energy to combat the climate crisis and Democrats’ support for abortion rights and the decriminalization of marijuana possession.
Reflecting the country’s overall racial disparities in income and net worth, black college students disproportionately rely on Pell Grants, which typically cover only a fraction of overall college costs, and student loans. According to Federal Reserve data, about 1 in 3 Black families have student loan debt, compared to about 1 in 5 white families. The average black borrower also has about $10,000 more in debt than the average white borrower. Additionally, federal statistics show that about 60% of black undergraduate students receive Pell Grants, compared to about 40% of the total college student population and one-third of white students.
Most historically black colleges and universities, both state-affiliated and private, were founded in the years after the end of the Civil War and the ratification of the 13th Amendment that ended chattel slavery. Most white campuses established in that postwar era, especially in the Old Confederacy, denied admission to black applicants entirely or, in the case of many northern schools, admitted only a few black students.
Morehouse was founded in 1867, and Spelman College, its adjacent private all-women’s school, was founded in 1881. The University of Georgia, the state’s flagship public university, however, was founded in 1785. That was more than three years earlier from the USA. The Constitution was ratified, but UGA did not serve black students until Hamilton Holmes and Charlayne Hunter were enrolled by order of a federal court in 1961.
Biden’s undergraduate alma mater, the University of Delaware, traces its roots to 1743, and its modern iteration began classes in 1867. The university did not integrate to include any black students until 1948, when the 81-year-old president was 6 years. .
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Kim reported from Washington.
