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US President Joe Biden speaks at the National Peace Officers’ Memorial Service outside the US Capitol in Washington, DC, May 15, 2024. Mandel Ngan, AFP

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US President Joe Biden

Agence France-Presse

<div><span class="fr-img-caption fr-fic fr-dib" style="width:960px"><span class="fr-img-wrap"><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1716106706800AFP__20240515__34RQ4JM__v1__Preview__UsPoliticsPoliceMemorialBiden.jpg" style="width:960px" class="fr-fic fr-dib" alt="US President Joe Biden speaks at the National Peace Officers’ Memorial Service outside the US Capitol in Washington, DC, May 15, 2024. Mandel Ngan, AFP"/><span class="fr-inner" style="text-align:left">US President Joe Biden speaks at the National Peace Officers’ Memorial Service outside the US Capitol in Washington, DC, May 15, 2024. <em>Mandel Ngan, AFP</em></span></span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;text-align:justify;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:10pt"><span style="color:#000000;background-color:transparent;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">ATLANTA -- US President Joe Biden speaks Sunday at the former university of civil rights icon Martin Luther King, Jr, in a bid to woo Black voters that risks being overshadowed by protests against Israel&#x27;s war in Gaza.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;text-align:justify;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:10pt"><span style="color:#000000;background-color:transparent;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Biden&#x27;s graduation speech at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, will be his most direct engagement with students since demonstrations over the conflict roiled campuses across the United States.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;text-align:justify;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:10pt"><span style="color:#000000;background-color:transparent;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Students at Morehouse, a historically Black university, have called on the college administration to cancel the speech over Biden&#x27;s support for Israel, which has caused strong opposition in a US presidential election year.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;text-align:justify;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:10pt"><span style="color:#000000;background-color:transparent;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">&quot;I think it will be a moving commencement address. I think it will meet the moment,&quot; White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters at a briefing on Friday.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;text-align:justify;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:10pt"><span style="color:#000000;background-color:transparent;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Asked about reports that the college principal would shut down the ceremony if there was major disruption, Jean-Pierre said: &quot;He will respect the peaceful protesters. It is up to Morehouse on how to manage that and move forward.&quot;</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;text-align:justify;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:10pt"><span style="color:#000000;background-color:transparent;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">A senior White House official recently met students and faculty members at Morehouse to discuss objections to Biden delivering the address, NBC News reported.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;text-align:justify;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:10pt"><span style="color:#000000;background-color:transparent;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">While Biden&#x27;s choice of Martin Luther King Jr&#x27;s alma mater emphasizes the heroism of the civil rights hero, protesters have pointed out that King was also an anti-war activist who opposed the Vietnam War in the 1960s.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;text-align:justify;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:10pt"><span style="color:#000000;background-color:transparent;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Biden initially stayed silent on the Gaza protests but later said that &quot;order must prevail&quot; after police broke up several university protest encampments around the US.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;text-align:justify;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:10pt"><a href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/world/2024/5/4/us-campus-protests-wane-after-crackdowns-biden-rebuke-1613https://news.abs-cbn.com/world/2024/5/4/us-campus-protests-wane-after-crackdowns-biden-rebuke-1613"></a><span style="color:#000000;background-color:transparent;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><a class="fr-green fr-strong" href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/world/2024/5/4/us-campus-protests-wane-after-crackdowns-biden-rebuke-1613https://news.abs-cbn.com/world/2024/5/4/us-campus-protests-wane-after-crackdowns-biden-rebuke-1613">READ: US campus protests wane after crackdowns, Biden rebuke</a></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;text-align:justify;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:10pt"><a href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/world/2024/4/28/police-clear-pro-palestinian-camps-at-three-us-universities-1040"></a><span style="color:#000000;background-color:transparent;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><a class="fr-green fr-strong" href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/world/2024/4/28/police-clear-pro-palestinian-camps-at-three-us-universities-1040">READ: Police clear pro-Palestinian camps at three US universities</a></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;text-align:justify;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:10pt"><span style="color:#000000;background-color:transparent;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><strong>- Biden poll worries -</strong></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;text-align:justify;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:10pt"><span class="fr-video fr-deletable fr-fvc fr-dvb fr-draggable" contenteditable="false" draggable="true"><iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/pmCp4noeDaM?&amp;wmode=opaque&amp;rel=0" frameBorder="0" allowfullscreen="" class="fr-draggable"></iframe></span><br/></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;text-align:justify;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:10pt"><span style="color:#000000;background-color:transparent;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Biden&#x27;s problems with voters over Gaza mirrors wider issues he has with Black and younger voters, two groups that helped him beat Republican Donald Trump in the 2020 election.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;text-align:justify;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:10pt"><span style="color:#000000;background-color:transparent;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">He will need to keep those strands in his coalition to have a hope of preventing Trump from making a sensational comeback to the White House despite a chaotic first term and multiple criminal indictments.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;text-align:justify;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:10pt"><span style="color:#000000;background-color:transparent;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">The Morehouse College visit caps days of events in which Biden is reaching out to Black voters, all staged around the 70th anniversary of a 1954 US Supreme Court decision that ended racial school segregation.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;text-align:justify;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:10pt"><span style="color:#000000;background-color:transparent;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">A New York Times/Siena poll last week showed that in addition to trailing Trump in several key battleground states, Biden is also losing ground with African Americans.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;text-align:justify;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:10pt"><span style="color:#000000;background-color:transparent;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Trump is winning more than 20 percent of Black voters in the poll -- which would be the highest level of Black support for a Republican presidential candidate since the Civil Rights Act was enacted in 1964, The New York Times said.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;text-align:justify;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:10pt"><span style="color:#000000;background-color:transparent;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Several other polls have also shown Biden&#x27;s support lagging among Black voters.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;text-align:justify;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:10pt"><span style="color:#000000;background-color:transparent;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Biden accused Trump and his &quot;extreme&quot; supporters of &quot;going after diversity, equity and inclusion all across America&quot; in a speech on Friday at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington on Friday.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;text-align:justify;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:10pt"><a href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/world/2024/5/15/biden-trump-agree-to-election-debates-in-june-september-103"></a><span style="color:#000000;background-color:transparent;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><a class="fr-green fr-strong" href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/world/2024/5/15/biden-trump-agree-to-election-debates-in-june-september-103">READ: Biden, Trump agree to election debates in June, September</a></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;text-align:justify;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:10pt"><a href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/world/2024/5/18/trump-and-biden-trade-campaign-trail-barbs-750"></a><span style="color:#000000;background-color:transparent;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><a class="fr-green fr-strong" href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/world/2024/5/18/trump-and-biden-trade-campaign-trail-barbs-750">READ: Trump and Biden trade campaign trail barbs</a></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;text-align:justify;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:10pt"><span style="color:#000000;background-color:transparent;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">On Thursday in the Oval Office, Biden welcomed key figures and relatives of plaintiffs in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case that proved a milestone for the US civil rights movement.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;text-align:justify;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:10pt"><span style="color:#000000;background-color:transparent;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Later Sunday, Biden will then travel to Detroit where he will address the NAACP, the nation&#x27;s top civil rights group.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;text-align:justify;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:10pt"><span style="color:#000000;background-color:transparent;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><strong>© Agence France-Presse</strong></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;text-align:justify;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:10pt"><span style="color:#000000;background-color:transparent;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><strong>RELATED VIDEO:</strong></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;text-align:justify;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:10pt"><span class="fr-video fr-deletable fr-fvc fr-dvb fr-draggable" contenteditable="false" draggable="true"><iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/HcWUJD6jQvo?&amp;wmode=opaque&amp;rel=0" frameBorder="0" allowfullscreen="" class="fr-draggable"></iframe></span><br/></div><div><br/></div><div><br/></div>

<p>US President Joe Biden speaks Sunday at the former university of civil rights icon Martin Luther King, Jr, in a bid to woo Black voters that risks being overshadowed by protests against Israel's war in Gaza.</p>

US President Joe Biden speaks Sunday at the former university of civil rights icon Martin Luther King, Jr, in a bid to woo Black voters that risks being overshadowed by protests against Israel's war in Gaza.

Biden risks Gaza protests at Martin Luther King Jr.'s college

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Biden risks Gaza protests at Martin Luther King Jr.'s college

Agence France-Presse,

Andrew Caballero-Reynolds with Danny Kemp in Washington

Published May 19, 2024 04:23 PM PHT

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United States

US politics

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