It’s been one year since Joseph R. Biden Jr. was sworn in as the 46th president of the United States, assuming office in the middle of a deadly pandemic, and the most significant push for racial justice the country has seen since the Civil Rights era.Amidst the social polarization promoted by former president Donald Trump, Biden inherited a House of Representatives where his party holds a razor-thin majority, and an evenly divided Senate, where Vice President Kamala Harris provides Democrats with the tie-breaking vote.
Biden’s election win, as well as his party’s control of Congress, would not have been possible withoutBlack voters. After a late entry into the 2020 race, and a poor showing in early contests,61 percent of Black Democrats in South Carolina chose Biden in their state’s primary, breathing life into his nascent campaign. In the general election, Blacks in urban centers helped Biden secure wins in key swing states. And in Georgia that year, record turnout and Black voters helped Biden win the state’s Electoral College votes and send two Democrats to the Senate, giving the president’s party control of the chamber.
In his victory speech back in November of 2020, Biden recognized the debt that he and his party owed to the Black voters who put them in power, pledging to have the community’s back. But progress on key legislation has been slow. Both the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act and theEmmett Till Anti-Lynching Act are stalled in the Senate. And the same goes for the party’s efforts at voting rights legislation.
On this episode of Into America, Trymaine Lee talks with NBC News Washington correspondent Yamiche Alcindor about how Joe Biden’s pledge to the Black community is holding up one year into his administration, and what things look like moving forward.
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