Liam Conner
When he delivers the commencement address at Morehouse College, President Biden will have his most direct engagement with college students since the start of the year. Israel-Hamas War in a center of black politics and culture.
Morehouse is located in Atlanta, the largest city in the swing state of Georgia, which Biden replaced then-President Donald Trump four years ago. Biden’s speech on Sunday will take place as the Democrat tries to make inroads with a key and symbolic electorate – young black people – and repair the diverse coalition that elected him to the White House.
The announcement of the speech last month triggered peaceful protests and calls for the college administration to overturn Biden’s handling of the war between Israel and Hamas. Some students at Morehouse and other historically black campuses in Atlanta say they strongly oppose Biden and the decision to have him speak, reflecting the tension Biden faces in many black communities and with young voters across the country.
Fences began going up Thursday around the campus as concerns grew about possible protests.
Morehouse President David Thomas warned earlier this week that he would halt graduation ceremonies if demonstrations broke out.
“If my choice is 20 people being arrested on national television on the Morehouse campus, taken away in ties during our graduation, before we get to that point, I would complete the ceremony,” Thomas told NPR.
For weeks, some students and faculty have challenged leaders at the historically black college to rescind Biden’s invitation over his administration’s response to the Israel-Hamas war.
“We feel that all of their decisions do not reflect the moral compass of ourselves, as students at this institution, and largely the black American population,” Morehouse sophomore Anwar Karim told CBS News.
Last week, the White House sent Biden’s senior adviser, Stephen Benjamin, to meet with students on campus.
“I think as long as they’re peaceful protests that don’t disrupt what an incredible moment this is for each and every one of the graduates who are here today, I think we’ll all consider this a success,” Benjamin said during a White House briefing.
Fabin Nwaduba, an engineering graduate, told CBS News: “This is one of the happiest days of my life. If they (protesters) come and ruin everything, I’m going to be hurt.”
Thomas said in an interview with the Associated Press that the emotions surrounding the speech made it even more important for Biden to speak.
“In many ways, these are the moments Morehouse was born for,” he said. “We need somewhere in this country that can contain the tensions that threaten to divide us. If Morehouse can’t contain these tensions, then no place can.”
The president’s visit comes at a critical time in the decisive state. Although Biden carried Georgia in 2020, if the election were held today, a recent New York Times/Siena poll showed him trailing Trump by 10 points as both candidates try to shore up support among black voters.
Sunday’s speech will culminate a four-day period during which Biden will focus on reaching out to communities of color. On Thursday, Mr. Biden met privately with the plaintiffs of the case Brown v. Board of Education that banned legal segregation in America’s public schools. The next day, Biden will speak at an NAACP meeting commemorating the 70th anniversary of the historic decision.
Many young black men identified with the Palestinian cause and sometimes drew parallels between Israeli rule of the Palestinian territories and South Africa’s now-defunct apartheid system and abolished Jim Crow laws in the US. Israel rejects claims that its system of laws for Palestinians constitutes apartheid.
“I think the president will do himself good if he doesn’t shy away from this, especially when you think about the audience he’s going to be speaking to directly and the nation,” Thomas told the AP.
The backlash at Morehouse began even before Thomas publicly announced Biden’s arrival. Faculty sent executives a letter of concern, prompting an online town hall. Alumni gathered several hundred signatures to call on Thomas to rescind Biden’s invitation. The petition called the invitation antithetical to the pacifism that Morehouse alumnus Martin Luther King Jr. expressed in opposing the Vietnam War.
Some students note that leaders at Morehouse and other HBCUs did not always support King and other civil rights activists who are revered today. Morehouse, for example, expelled actor Samuel L. Jackson in 1969 after he and other students detained Morehouse trustees, including King’s father, in a campus building as part of demanding curriculum changes and the appointment of more black curators.
Students organized two recent protests at the Atlanta University Center, a consortium of historically black institutions in Atlanta that includes Morehouse.
“Our institution supports genocide and we turn a blind eye,” said Nyla Broddie, a student at Spelman College, which is part of AUC. Brodie argued that Biden’s Israel policy should be seen in the broader context of US foreign policy and domestic police violence against Black Americans.
Thomas told the AP that he “feels very positive about graduation” and that “no” Morehouse seniors — there are about 500 at the all-male private school — chose not to participate.
“That’s not to say that feelings about what’s happening in Gaza don’t resonate with people in our community,” Thomas said.
Thomas met privately with students, as well as several trustees. The Morehouse Alumni Association hosted a student town hall, featuring at least one veteran of the Atlanta Student Movement, a Civil Rights-era organization.
But there was a consistent message: withdrawing the invitation from the president of the United States was not an option. When students raised questions about equity investments in Israel and US defense companies, they were told that the relevant amounts were insignificant, a few hundred thousand dollars in mutual funds.
HBCUs have not seen the repression of protests by authorities like those in Columbia University in New York City and University of California, Los Angeles. However, Morehouse and the AUC saw peaceful demonstrations, petitions, and private meetings among campus stakeholders. Xavier University, a historically black university in Louisiana, has withdrawn UN Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield’s graduation invitation, citing students’ desire to “enjoy a disruption-free commencement ceremony.”
