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Former Vice President Joe Biden delivered his most comprehensive speech on race on Sunday, calling on the country to live up to its founding ideals and saying that silence about racism is tantamount to complicity.
"There can be no realization of the American dream without attacking the original sin of slavery," said Biden to the faithful in Alabama, while delivering the keynote speech at the 56th anniversary ceremony. the bomb attack perpetrated against 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham.
In a sometimes very personal address, Biden spoke of the losses he has experienced in life to sympathize with the Birmingham community as they remember that four young girls killed the Birmingham attack. He explained that the terrorist attack in this country "revealed the lie that a child could be free in America while the long shadow of oppression darkened our cities and ruled our countryside."
Biden has highlighted the most prominent hate crimes of the last decade, including the White Supremacy Rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017, the 2015 Mass Shot in a Historic Black Church in Charleston, South Carolina, and the mass shooting of 2018 in a Pittsburgh synagogue, proving that "violence does not live in the past".
"Domestic terrorism of white supremacy has been the antagonist of our highest ideals from before the founding of this country," Biden said. "Lynch crowds, arsonists, bomb manufacturers, isolated gunmen – and as we all realize now, this violence does not live in the past."
The former vice president said that the United States had not yet kept its promise of equality for all and that any silence in the face of such hatred "was a complicity". At the beginning of his campaign, he reiterated that he claimed his country was "fighting for the soul of America".
"Now, hate is rising again and we are at a defining moment in American history," said Biden.
The former vice president evoked his own journey into the civil service inspired by the civil rights movement and explained how the Birmingham attack "helped us realize that working on the sidelines of the movement did not make any sense. was not enough, "he said to become a public defender. ran for the office because of this and the response to MLK's assassination.
Biden said that in his view, while racial violence inspired the civil rights movement that led to the passing of historic laws on civil rights and voting rights in the mid-1960s Americans are "ready" to "take another step" in response to recent hatred.
He added that "if we are whites, we can never fully understand" the struggle that blacks have been facing, "but we must work to bring our country closer."
The vice president, who served alongside the country's first black president, has the support of black voters. But his speech comes as he himself was examined for his legislative record on the bus and criminal justice and his earlier statements on racial issues.
This summer, Biden was criticized for raising funds for June's comments about his work with segregationist senators decades ago and, more recently, for an answer he gave during the presidential debate. Thursday in response to a question about repairs and the lasting effect of slavery. Biden responded in part that social workers are needed to "help parents manage the education of their children" because "they are not sure what to do", suggesting solutions such as maintaining social responsibility. a "turntable" night so that young children can learn more words.
Mike Memoli contributed.
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