Watch Biden’s Morehouse College Commencement Speech

ATLANTA — President Joe Biden on Sunday told the Morehouse College graduating class that he heard their voices protesting the Israel-Hamas war and that the scenes from the conflict in Gaza were moving.

“I support peaceful, nonviolent protest,” he told the students, some who wore keffiyeh scarves around their shoulders over their black graduation robes.

The president told the crowd that it was a “humanitarian crisis in Gaza, which is why I called for an immediate ceasefire to stop the fighting” and bring home the hostages taken when Hamas attacked Israel on October 7. at the end of his speech, which also reflected on American democracy and his role in safeguarding it, was the most direct acknowledgment to American students of the campus protests that have swept the country.

Morehouse’s announcement that Biden would be the commencement speaker sparked some backlash among the school’s 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 soliciting signatures to pressure Morehouse President David Thomas to rescind it.

The letter asserted that Biden’s approach to Israel amounted to support for genocide in Gaza and was out of step with the pacifism expressed by Martin Luther King Jr., Morehouse’s most famous graduate.

Hamas’ attack on southern Israel killed 1,200 people. Israel’s offensive has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to local health officials.

Some members of the graduating class showed support for Palestinians in Gaza by tying keffiyeh scarves around their shoulders over their black graduation robes. A student wrapped himself in a Palestinian flag. On the stage behind the president, academics unfurled a flag of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The country is mired in an ongoing civil war that has plunged the nation into violence and displaced millions of people. Many racial justice advocates have called for greater U.S. attention to the conflict, as well as American help to end the violence.

“Thank you, God, for this ‘woke’ class of 2024 that is in tune with the zeitgeist, the zeitgeist,” said Rev. Claybon Lea Jr.

Valedictorian DeAngelo Jeremiah Fletcher said at the end of his speech that it was his duty to talk about the war in Gaza and that it was important to recognize that both Palestinians and Israelis suffered.

“From the comfort of our homes, we watched an unprecedented number of civilians mourn the loss of men, women and children, while calling for the release of all hostages, he said. “It is my position as a Morehouse man, or rather as a human being, to call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.”

Biden stood and shook his hand after Fletcher finished.

The speech, and a separate one Biden will deliver on Sunday in the Midwest, are part of a burst of outreach to black constituents by the president, who has seen his support among those voters dwindle since his strong support helped put him in office. Oval Office. in 2020.

After speaking at Morehouse in Atlanta, Biden will travel to Detroit to speak at an NAACP dinner.

Georgia and Michigan are among a handful of states that will help decide the expected November rematch between Biden and former Republican President Donald Trump. Biden narrowly won Georgia and Michigan in 2020 and needs to repeat – boosted by strong black voter turnout in both cities.

Biden spent the end of last week reaching out to Black constituents. He met with plaintiffs and relatives of those involved in Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision that banned racial segregation in public schools. He also met with 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 Freedom Fund dinner, which traditionally draws thousands of attendees. The speech gives Biden a chance 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, predominantly in the city of Dearborn. Local leaders were at the forefront of an “uncommitted” effort that received more than 100,000 votes in the state’s Democratic primary and spread across the country.

A protest rally and march against Biden’s visit are planned for Sunday afternoon in Dearborn. Another protest rally is expected later that evening outside Huntington Place, the location of the dinner.