This archive report was first published on 16 September 2019.
On a Sunday morning in September 2019, Joe Biden delivered a 20-minute address at a church in South Carolina, where he spoke about his connection to black voters and the nation's struggle with racism and oppression.
According to Aimee Allison, founder of She the People, a political advocacy group focused on women of color, Biden's past relationships with black voters are being put to the test in the 2020 presidential election.
“A lot of us are just shaking our heads, saying it seems to be a disqualifying sentiment,” Allison said. “At this point in the primary, he does not have an easy and powerful political response to a question like that — it’s got a lot of us just saying, ‘O.K., well, there are other candidates who are seriously contending for our votes.’”
Recent surveys, including a 2019 black women's roundtable survey, have shown that black women are not yet committed to voting for Biden, with many choosing “other/prefer not to answer” as their top choice.
“If I were the vice president’s team, I’d double down on locking in the vote that they think they have, because right now I’d call it soft,” said Daisha Daughtry, a political strategist.
Biden's speech at the church was a departure from his past comments on slavery and racism, including a 1975 remark where he said, “I’ll be damned if I feel responsible to pay for what happened 300 years ago.”
However, in his 2019 speech, Biden struck a sharply different note, saying, “There can be no realization of the American dream without grappling with the original sin of slavery.”
Eric Holder, the former attorney general under Barack Obama, has defended Biden's commitment to civil rights enforcement, saying that he doesn’t think there is any basis for people to believe that a President Biden would be less committed than Obama was.
