CNN
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Joe Biden will be the first sitting president to speak at a Sunday service at the Atlanta church where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. once preached, the White House has announced, as Biden marks the national holiday weekend honoring the late civil rights leader.
The president will “deliver remarks reflecting on Dr. King’s life and legacy, and the way that we can go forward together,” from the pulpit of the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, the White House said Friday. King served as co-pastor of the church from 1960 until his assassination in 1968.
Biden’s visit comes amid a steady drip of revelations tied to his handling of classified documents after his time as vice president. The White House has faced increasing criticism for its lack of transparency with the public over the finding of classified material at Biden’s home and his former private office. Attorney General Merrick Garland has appointed a special counsel to take over the investigation into the classified documents found at the two locations connected to Biden.
Biden was invited to speak Sunday by the current pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church, Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, on what would have been King’s 94th birthday. Warnock was recently elected to a full six-year term following an election in which he distanced himself from Biden on the campaign trail in Georgia, where polling showed a majority of voters disapproved of the president’s job performance.
At Ebenezer Baptist Church, Biden will speak on a number of issues, “including how important it is that we have access to our democracy,” Keisha Lance Bottoms, the White House senior adviser for public engagement, told reporters at a White House press briefing on Friday.
The speech also comes as the president is set to make a decision about his political future with his advisers readying plans for a possible reelection bid. Biden narrowly flipped Georgia in 2020, buoyed by support from Black voters, and the state could prove critical in next year’s presidential campaign.
Bottoms, a former mayor of Atlanta, called the visit “an inflection point,” as the president’s voting rights agenda remains stalled in Congress. She said Biden will emphasize voting rights and related legislation that has stalled on Capitol Hill during his first two years in office.
“If you’ve come through the East Wing, you’ve seen the pictures of Dr. King meeting with Lyndon Johnson, meeting with other civil rights leaders, hashing out voting rights in the White House – and so the fact that we are still here talking about this in 2023, I think really speaks to the fact that we need action, we need that action from Congress,” Bottoms said.
“The President has done and will continue to do all that he can do in his executive powers, but there’s only so much that he can do. We need Congress to act,” she added.
A Democratic-controlled House passed a voting rights bill in 2021, but attempts by Senate Democrats to change filibuster rules to pass the legislation were unsuccessful amid opposition from moderate Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. Sinema has since become an independent, while continuing to caucus with Democrats, and Republicans won control of the House following the November midterm elections, further dashing hopes of finding compromise on voting rights.
Bottoms defended the administration’s handling of the voting rights issue, telling reporters Friday that the Biden White House has “done all that we can do from the executive branch,” but if there were additional steps that would further the issue, “we welcome these suggestions.”
While in Atlanta, Biden is expected to meet with members of the King family and civil rights organizations, the White House said.
King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1968 at age 39.
On Monday, when the nation honors King on his eponymous holiday, Biden will deliver the keynote address during the National Action Network’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Breakfast in Washington, DC, on the invitation of Rev. Al Sharpton.
