President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have spent the past few days in South Carolina making re-election pitches to Black audiences while also celebrating the Black organizers and community leaders who helped them win the White House in 2020.
The New York Times reported Black voters have been frustrated with the Biden administration for failing to achieve key campaign promises they made.
While in South Carolina, both Biden and Harris have highlighted their administration’s lesser-known victories during their term, arguing that another four years would allow them to achieve even more.
“People don’t understand exactly what role the president has,” said State
Senator Tameika Isaac-Devine, who was elected to her Columbia-area seat on Jan. 2. “But when you break down the policy on ‘because of this act, you are able to get dot dot dot,’ I think that is where we have to do a better job.”The pair brought attention to several key policy points, including a record-low Black unemployment rate and large-scale investments in historically Black colleges and universities, their efforts to reduce student loan debt, and the appointment of a record number of Black judges to the federal bench during his presidency, including Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Additionally, they drew a sharp contrast with former President
Donald Trump and far-right Republican leaders who are still denying the 2020 election and are attacking DEI initiatives and more in the name of canceling woke culture.The events were the first of several the pair will make in the state ahead of the state’s primary election on Feb. 3, according to campaign insiders. Many Black voters in the state were relieved by their presence, believing it’s a sign that the two Democrats are taking their re-election seriously.
Standing in the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, the same church where Dylan Roof shot and killed nine Black people in 2015, Biden condemned the “poison” of white supremacy, adding that it “ripped this nation apart” during the Civil War and Jim Crow eras.
The President continued, saying the United States, is in “an era of the second lost cause” that could bring a return of that same racial violence putting multiracial democracy at stake, and Black voters have an opportunity to salvage it.
Biden still has a bevy of Black figures who are supporting him and Harris, and also gave credit to those in the state that helped boost him to the White House, including South Carolina Representative James Clyburn, who pushed Biden to nominate a Black woman to the Supreme Court.
“We know Joe. But more importantly, Joe knows us,” Clyburn told the congregation of more than 700, according to the Times.
Other Black politicians that have supported President Biden include former Biden senior advisor, Cedric Richmond, and former Atlanta Mayor, Keisha Lance Bottoms.
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