President Joe Biden declared “history is in our hands” at a reception with Vice President Kamala Harris marking Black History Month at the White House on Tuesday.
“Tonight, let’s reflect on how we make history, not erase history,” Biden told guests in the East Room.
“This month and every month, we celebrate Black history as American history – living, breathing history that we create every day,” Harris said in her own remarks. “History that must be taught in full.”
The president praised his vice president – the first woman, Black American, and South Asian American to hold the role – as “historic,” noting she has done an “incredible job.”
In an interview with Spectrum News before Tuesday’s event, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the White House hosted more than 500 Black community leaders, activists and business professionals for the occasion.
“We are so excited to have them here to celebrate – not just Black History Month, but what the president has been able to do,” Jean-Pierre told Spectrum News. “The president has a saying about promises made and promises kept, and that’s what he’s been able to do.”
Jean-Pierre touted the administration’s progress in delivering for Black communities – a key voting bloc for the incumbent president as he seeks another four years in the White House.
“Look folks, we will be back here next year,” Biden told the crowd, referring to the 2024 election and drawing cheers.
The press secretary went on to highlight what the administration sees as the president’s biggest accomplishments when it comes to that progress, such as nominating the first Black woman, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, to the Supreme Court and appointing more Black women to Circuit Court judgeships than previous presidents combined.
She noted the impact the 16 million new business applications filed during the first three years of Biden’s presidency are having on Black communities. Black business ownership has doubled since 2019, according to the White House.
During Black History Month last year, Biden signed an executive order aiming to direct the government to do more to address racial inequality that, among other things, set a goal that 15% of federal contracting money must go to small disadvantaged businesses by 2025.
Coinciding with the Black History Month this year, the White House is also hosting events this week focused on addressing gun violence in Black communities through the first-ever White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention launched by Biden earlier this year.
But it all also comes amid some troubling signs for Biden when it comes to his support among Black Americans heading into the November election – despite his resounding victory in South Carolina’s Democratic primary over the weekend quieting some of those concerns.
The latest Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll found the president’s approval rating among Black adults sits at 42%. That marks a significant decline since the first year of his presidency, when the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll put his approval rating among Black Americans at 86% in July and 64% in September.
And recent 2024 election polls have found a decline in support for the incumbent president from Black voters – 91% of which backed Biden in the general election in 2020, according to AP VoteCast.
Biden has not been able to deliver on some key priorities such as passing sweeping protections combating restrictive voting laws and enacting his broad student loan forgiveness plan due to Congressional inaction on the former and the Supreme Court on the latter.
A USA TODAY/Ipsos poll conducted before the Supreme Court struck down the proposal, for instance, found more than half of Black respondents supported Biden’s plan to forgive up to $20,000 in student debt for those making under a certain income.
Despite the high court’s decision, Biden has pressed on with relieving debt in narrower ways and Jean-Pierre noted the president has invested more than $7 billion in Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
On the economy, Jean-Pierre noted the historically low unemployment rate among Black adults in 2023.
“When the president walked into this administration, unemployment rate for the community was at more than 9%. Now, as of October of 2023, it’s at 5%,” she said.
Data from the U.S. Department of Labor released on Friday showed the unemployment rate among Black men 20 years old and older ticked up from 4.6% in December to 5.3% in January. The unemployment rate among white men in January was 3.3%.
“Obviously, there’s more work to do,” Jean-Pierre recognized. “And I think one of the things that’s really important is we’ve seen, even with black wealth, we’ve seen an uptick of about 60%.”
“My friends, we face a moment of real choosing – I mean that sincerely, it’s not hyperbole,” Biden said on Tuesday. “In this moment, may we choose to be the light, to make real the promise of America – for all Americans.”
