Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
On his last full day in office, President Joe Biden spoke at a South Carolina Black church about his vision for a just society one day before the federal holiday honoring the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
“I first got involved in public life because of the Civil Rights Movement,” Biden said at the Royal Missionary Baptist Church in Charleston. “I had two political heroes growing up, Dr. King and Bobby Kennedy,” the former U.S. attorney general and senator, who, like Dr. King, was tragically assassinated in 1968.
Biden, who was 25 when Dr. King was killed, said last April on the 56th anniversary of Dr. King’s death: “His unfinished mission inspired me to leave a prestigious law firm to become a public defender and begin a career in public service.”
After leaving the church, Biden toured the nearby International African American Museum, at the site where some 200,000 captured Africans were sold into slavery.
In another gesture of racial reconciliation, the president issued a posthumous pardon Sunday for Black nationalist leader Marcus Garvey, who was convicted of mail fraud in 1923, imprisoned for two years and then deported to Jamaica.
Dr. King was assassinated when he was just 39. I was 8, and I vividly remember crying uncontrollably when I heard the terrible news. I couldn’t understand how God could let such a great and saintly man be murdered. Black America was plunged into a state of mourning, as if a close and dearly beloved relative suddenly died.
I later read all the books, sermons and other writings Dr. King produced. And I was honored to play a significant role in the campaign to make Dr. King’s birthday a federal holiday, working with his widow, Coretta Scott King, and many others to win congressional passage for needed legislation that was signed into law by President Ronald Reagan in 1983.
Dr. King awakened the conscience of white America to the ugly racism that had oppressed Black people since colonial days. He changed American history for the better by leading nonviolent protests and advocacy efforts to win the enactment of landmark civil rights legislation, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the 1968 Fair Housing Act.
The Voting Rights Act enabled my grandparents, parents and other Black people in the South to vote for the first time, prompting candidates for elected office to pay attention to the needs of Black folks and leading to the election of Black federal, state and local officials.
I still remember being required to use “colored” drinking fountains and restrooms as a girl, as if being Black was a communicable disease that necessitated us being separated from whites.
Dr. King refused to accept the notion of Black inferiority. He gained national fame when he led a year-long boycott by Black people of city buses in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955 and 1956 to protest a policy requiring Black passengers to sit in the back of buses and give up their seats to whites when the front was full. Rosa Parks, a courageous Black seamstress, was arrested and fined for refusing to go along with the policy. Her arrest led the U.S. Supreme Court to outlaw segregation on public buses.
The struggle for racial justice has continued since Dr. King was murdered, advanced by people of goodwill of all races. Biden has been among them, establishing a strong record to carry on Dr. King’s work as a U.S. senator, vice president and president. Like Dr. King, Biden has worked to extend the blessings of liberty, opportunity, and equality to all Americans.
As a 2020 presidential candidate, Biden selected Sen. Kamala Harris of California as his running mate, enabling her to become the first Black and first female U.S. vice president. When Biden ended his reelection bid last year, he endorsed Harris to take his place.
Biden appointed 63 Black federal judges — more than any president —including Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court. In addition, Biden appointed many Black people to high-level positions in his administration.
The Biden economic program reduced Black unemployment to 4.7% — the lowest level on record — and cut the poverty rate among Black children in half with an expanded child tax credit. Federal investments under Biden helped double the rate of Black business ownership and increased Black homeownership.
Biden invested more than $16 billion to support historically Black colleges and universities, opening the doors to the American Dream for many Black young people.
And like all Americans, Black people benefited from legislation Biden signed to enable the nation to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, expand federal investment in infrastructure, expand manufacturing, combat climate change, reduce health care costs and more.
Because Martin Luther King Jr. Day falls on the day Donald Trump is being inaugurated as president, the holiday is getting less attention than it deserves this year. That’s regrettable.
Dr. King was an inspiring and important leader — a change agent who moved America away from the low road of racism and toward the high road of reconciliation and equality. He never held elected office, but, like Moses, he led his oppressed people to freedom.
Rejecting violence and hate despite centuries of slavery and discrimination that Black Americans have endured, Dr. King preached a gospel of hope — hope for peace, love, justice and unity among Americans of every race. We should resurrect the righteous goals Dr. King pursued as we inaugurate a new president.
I believe that if Dr. King were alive today, at age 96, he would call on all Americans committed to democracy to wish our incoming president, the new Congress, and all federal officials, public servants and citizens success in pursuing peace, prosperity and freedom for the people of the United States and around the globe looking to enjoy those same ideals and blessings. Doing this is the best way for us to honor King’s memory and continue his noble mission.
Donna Brazile is an ABC News Contributor, veteran political strategist, an adjunct professor at Georgetown University, and the King Endowed Chair in Public Policy at Howard University. She previously served as interim Chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and of the DNC’s Voting Rights Institute. She managed the Gore campaign in 2000 and has lectured at more than 225 colleges and universities on race, diversity, women, leadership and restoring civility in politics. Brazile is the author of several books, including the New York Times’ bestseller “Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns That Put Donald Trump in the White House.” @DonnaBrazile.
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