WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden, who belatedly chose not to seek re-election, will pay a visit Monday to the last president’s library to make the same difficult choice more than half a century ago.
Biden’s speech on Monday at the LBJ Presidential Library in Austin, Texas, was designed to mark the 60th Anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson. While there, he calls for changes in the Supreme Court which include term limits and an enforceable code of ethics for judges, as well as a constitutional amendment that would limit presidential immunity.
But the visit took on a very different symbolism in the two weeks it took to reschedule it, after Biden had to cancel it because he contracted COVID-19.
The speech, originally scheduled for July 15, was already seen by the White House as an opportunity for Biden to try to make his case. saving his sinking presidential campaign — delivered in the home district of Rep. Lloyd Doggett, the 15-term congressman who was the first Democratic lawmaker to publicly call for Biden to resign.
Two weeks later, the political landscape was reshaped. Biden is out of the race. Vice President Kamala Harris is the likely Democratic candidate. And the president is not focused on the next four years, but about the legacy of his only mandate and the future of democracy.
No sitting American president has dropped out of the race so late in the process as Biden. Johnson announced that he would not seek re-election in March 1968, at the height of the Vietnam War.
Biden has been drawing a lot of comparisons to Johnson lately. Both men spoke to the nation of Oval Office to present their decisions. Both faced pressure from within their own party to step aside and both were praised for doing so.
But their reasons were very different. Johnson stepped aside in the heat of war and spoke at length about his need to focus on the conflict. Biden, 81, had every intention from running for re-election until his shaky performance in the June 27 debate raised fears within his own party about his age and mental acuity, and whether he could win Republican Donald Trump.
Biden called Trump a serious threat to democracy, especially after former president efforts in 2020 to overturn the results of the election he lost and your continued lies about this loss. The president framed his decision to drop out of the race as motivated by the need to unite his party to protect democracy.
“I decided that the best way forward is to pass the torch to a new generation. This is the best way to unite our nation,” Biden said in his Oval Office speech. “Nothing, nothing can stop the salvation of our democracy. And that includes personal ambition.”
Biden decided to seek the presidency in 2020 after witnessing violence at a 2017 “Unite The Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where torch-wielding white supremacists marched to protest the removal of a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee, chanting “You will not replace us!” and “The Jews will not replace us!”
Biden said he was horrified by Trump’s response, especially when the Republican told reporters that “there were some very bad people in that group, but there were also people who were very good people, on both sides.”
During his presidency, Biden has often put equity and civil rights at the forefront, including with his pick for vice president. Harris is the first woman, Blacks and people of South Asian descent to hold the position. She could also become the first woman elected to the presidency.
The Biden administration has worked to combat racial discrimination in the housing market, he has pardoned thousands of people convicted of federal marijuana charges that disproportionately affected people of color, and he has provided federal funding to reconnect city neighborhoods that were racially segregated or divided by highway projectsand also invested billions in historically black colleges and universities.
His efforts, he said, are meant to move the country forward — and to guard against efforts to undermine the landmark legislation signed by Johnson in 1964, one of the most significant civil rights achievements in U.S. history.
The law made discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin illegal. It was designed to end discrimination in schools, work and public facilities, and prohibited the uneven application of voter registration requirements.
Johnson signed the law five hours after Congress passed it, saying the nation was in a “testing moment” that “we must not fail.” He added: “Let us close the sources of racial poison. Let us pray for wise and understanding hearts. Let us set aside irrelevant differences and make our nation whole.”
Eight years later, Johnson convened a civil rights symposium bringing together those who fought for civil rights to press for more progress.
“There was very little progress; we have not done enough,” he said in 1972 during the symposium. “Until we overcome unequal history, we cannot overcome inequality of opportunity… There is still work to be done, so let’s move forward.”
Biden said he is “determined to do as much as I can” in his final six months in office, including signing important legislation expanding voting rights and a federal policing bill named after George Floyd.
“I will continue to defend our personal freedoms and our civil rights, from the right to vote to the right to choose,” Biden said in the Oval Office. “I will continue to denounce hate and extremism, making it clear that there is no place, no place in America for political violence or any violence, period.
Later on Monday, Biden will also travel to Houston to pay his respects to the late Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, who died on July 19 at age 74.
