Biden will speak at Morehouse commencement, an election-year spotlight in front of Black voters

ATLANTA (AP) — President Joe Biden will be the commencement speaker at Morehouse College in Georgia, giving the Democrat a key election-year spotlight on one of the nation’s preeminent historically Black campuses as he works to shore up the racially diverse coalition that propelled him to the Oval Office.

A person familiar with the matter confirmed Biden will speak at the alma mater of civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. The person was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The May 19 speech will mark the second consecutive spring that Biden has spoken to the graduating class of a historically Black school. In 2023, the president delivered the commencement address at Howard University. The Washington, D.C., school is the alma mater of Vice President Kamala Harris, the first nonwhite woman to hold that office. Morehouse, a private all-male school that is part of the multi-campus Atlanta University Center, also is the alma mater of Sen. Raphael Warnock, Georgia’s first Black U.S. senator.

Polls have suggested Biden and Harris have work to do generate the same levels of Black support they won in 2020, especially among younger voters. It would not take a significant drop in Black turnout for Biden to yield several states to former President Donald Trump in their rematch.

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