Biden repeats questionable claim he went to a black church every morning in 1960s

President Joe Biden repeated questionable claims that he frequented a black church during the civil rights movement while attending a service honoring Martin Luther King Jr. on Sunday.

Biden would frequently comment that he attended services at a black church as a teenager while on the 2020 presidential campaign trail, but members of that church in Wilmington, Delaware do not recall him ever attending.

Speaking at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia on Sunday, Biden honored slain civil rights icon Dr. King on his 94th birthday. Biden is the first sitting commander-in-chief to deliver a Sunday sermon at the church King once co-led.

‘Let’s lay one thing to rest,’ Biden said at one point during his remarks. ‘I may be a practicing Catholic, but [I] used to go to 7:30 Mass every morning in high school and then in college before I went to the black church.’

‘Not a joke, Andy knows this,’ the president insisted, referencing former U.N. ambassador and former Southern Christian Leadership Conference executive director Andrew Young, who was in attendance.

President Joe Biden repeated during Sunday remarks his questionable claim that he attended a black church every day as a teenager. Pictured: Biden speaks at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia on Sunday honoring slain civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on his 94th birthday

President Joe Biden repeated during Sunday remarks his questionable claim that he attended a black church every day as a teenager. Pictured: Biden speaks at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia on Sunday honoring slain civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on his 94th birthday

‘Andy, it’s so great to see you, man,’ Biden continued. ‘You’re one of the greatest we’ve ever had. Andy and I took on apartheid in South Africa and a whole lot else. They didn’t want to see him coming. But we used to – that’s when we would organize to march and to desegregate the city.’

Biden condemned ‘racism, extremism, insurrection’ during remarks Sunday in Atlanta.

The president also pressed on the importance of democracy several times and lamented the ‘collapse’ of ‘institutional structures’ in the U.S.

Biden served as vice president for eight years under Barack Obama, the first-ever black U.S. President. He took a four-year break when Donald Trump served as president, then reemerged to run against him for president.

The black voting bloc was significant in helping him win the 2020 presidential contest against Donald Trump.

During a speech in 2019, Biden told Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow PUSH coalition: ‘I got raised in a black church.’

‘We would go sit in Reverend Herring’s church, sit there before we’d go out, and try to change things when I was a kid in college and in high school,’ he added, referencing the prominent African-American Union Baptist Church in Wilmington.

Interviews with long-time church members, however, raised questions over Biden’s account.

Some claim that while Biden befriended Rev. Herring as an adult, they say he did not attend their church as a teenager.

Herring’s longtime assistant Phyllis Drummond, who attended Union Baptist for 39 years, said does not think Biden attended in the 1960s.

‘No, not at our building,’ Drummond told the Washington Free Beacon in a 2020 interview. ‘I think he was probably in Claymont, [Del.,] [or] in Pennsylvania then.’

In a separate speech on the campaign trail, Biden repeated his claim he grew up in a black church.

Several members of the Wilmington church Biden claimed to have attended say they never remember seeing him there. Pictured: The president locked arms with Georgia Senator and senior pastor Raphael Warnock and White House adviser Keisha Lance Bottoms while singing 'We Shall Overcome' to end the Sunday service

Several members of the Wilmington church Biden claimed to have attended say they never remember seeing him there. Pictured: The president locked arms with Georgia Senator and senior pastor Raphael Warnock and White House adviser Keisha Lance Bottoms while singing ‘We Shall Overcome’ to end the Sunday service

‘When I was a teenager in Delaware, for real, I got involved in the civil rights movement,’ Biden said at Bethlehem Baptist Church in South Carolina in January 2020.

‘I’d go to 8:00 Mass, then I’d go to Reverend Herring’s church where we’d meet in order to organize and figure where we were going to go, whether we were going to desegregate the Rialto movie theater or what we were going to do.’

Biden has even made comments that seem to contradict the account.

When reporters questioned the president’s claim in 1987 that he marched in the civil rights movement, he acknowledged that he ‘wasn’t an activist’ and that his most significant experience with civil rights as a youth was when he worked at a swimming pool with mostly black customers as a college sophomore in 1962.

Revelations that Biden may have been exaggerating his history attending a black church and participating in the civil rights movement came around the same time during the campaign that he forced to admit his repeated claims about being arrested with Young in apartheid-era South Africa were untrue.

‘I was never arrested, and I don’t think [Biden] was either,’ Young said at the time.

‘I guess I wasn’t arrested, I was stopped,’ Biden said.

Biden’s appearance in front of a friendly audience in Georgia comes amid growing scrutiny from both sides of the aisle back in Washington, DC over his handling of classified files.

Biden on Sunday, January 15 became the first sitting commander-in-chief to deliver a Sunday sermon at Ebenezer Baptist Church - which was once led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Biden on Sunday, January 15 became the first sitting commander-in-chief to deliver a Sunday sermon at Ebenezer Baptist Church – which was once led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

The church service appeared to be packed, and was attended by both of Georgia's sitting senators

The church service appeared to be packed, and was attended by both of Georgia’s sitting senators

‘This is a time of choosing – direct choices we have,’ Biden said from the pulpit. ‘Are we have people who choose democracy over autocracy?’

‘Couldn’t ask that question 15 years ago, we thought democracy was settled – not for our African Americans – but democracy as an institutional structure was settled. But it’s not.’

King’s mission, Biden said, was to ‘redeem the soul of America.’ 

Invoking the Bible, he urged Americans to be ‘doers of the word.’

‘The battle for the soul of this nation is perennial,’ he said. ‘It’s a constant struggle.’

‘It’s a constant struggle between hope and fear, kindness and cruelty, justice and injustice – against those who traffic in racism, extremism, insurrection.’

At another point Biden again contrasted what people thought were settled views on governmental structures during King’s time versus the uncertainty of today amid the slow creep of authoritarianism across the globe.

Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock, who has been senior pastor at Ebenezer for 17 years, introduced Biden to the pulpit on Sunday

Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock, who has been senior pastor at Ebenezer for 17 years, introduced Biden to the pulpit on Sunday

Biden's speech came amid rapidly intensifying scrutiny over his handling of classified documents found at his Wilmington, Delaware home and a DC think tank where he used to have a private office

Biden’s speech came amid rapidly intensifying scrutiny over his handling of classified documents found at his Wilmington, Delaware home and a DC think tank where he used to have a private office

‘I doubt whether any of us would have thought, even Dr. King’s time, that the – literally – the institutional structures of this country might collapse,’ the president said grimly. ‘Like we’re seen in Brazil, like we’re seeing in other parts of the world.’

He repeated that the country was at an ‘inflection point’ and added, ‘we know there’s a lot of work that has to be continued on economic justice, civil rights, voting rights, protecting our democracy.’

Biden was introduced by Democratic Senator and Rev. Raphael Warnock, who has been the church’s senior pastor since 2005. 

The service ended with Biden and Warnock, linked arm in arm with several other people, singing ‘We Shall Overcome.’

Martin Luther King Jr. helped lead the congregation as co-pastor from 1960 until he was assassinated in 1968

Martin Luther King Jr. helped lead the congregation as co-pastor from 1960 until he was assassinated in 1968

The president is reflecting on the slain civil rights icon's legacy on what would have been his 94th birthday

The president is reflecting on the slain civil rights icon’s legacy on what would have been his 94th birthday

 It comes amid a growing crisis for his presidency over multiple revelations of classified documents being found in his Delaware home and at a former Washington, DC think tank where he had an office.

The White House admitted on Saturday that five classified pages were found in Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware home, after disclosing the existence of one earlier this week.

Passers-by walk near the 20-foot-high bronze sculpture "The Embrace," a memorial to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King, in the Boston Common, Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2023, in Boston

Passers-by walk near the 20-foot-high bronze sculpture ‘The Embrace,’ a memorial to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King, in the Boston Common, Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2023, in Boston

The president, whose job approval rating has hovered in the low 40s and even dipped into the high 30s at times, gave the Peach State a wide berth while making appearances in battlegrounds like Wisconsin and Colorado.

Biden’s last appearance in Georgia came on January 11, 2022. 

source: dailymail.co.uk