Avellon Williams
USA- In a speech on Sunday at Martin Luther King Jr.’s church, President Joe Biden affirmed the dream of the US civil rights leader of racial equality and justice had not yet come true.
In honor of King’s 94th birthday this Sunday, Biden spoke at the church he attended as a child.
“I’ve spoken before parliament, kings, queens, leaders of the world,” Biden said at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia. “I’ve been doing this for a long time. But this is intimidating.”
During his visit to mark the MLK holiday on Monday, the US president recalled the most famous speech by Martin Luther King Jr., who died in Memphis in 1968 for civil rights and against racial discrimination: the one in which he repeats “I have a dream”, “I have a dream.”
According to Biden, it is “a dream in which we all deserve liberty and justice, but it remains the task of our time to make it a reality.”
During his address, Biden announced that he had inserted a bust of King in his office.
“The battle for the soul of this nation is perennial. It’s a constant struggle. It’s a constant struggle between hope and fear, kindness and cruelty, justice and injustice,” he added.
“The soul of America is embodied in a sacred proposition that we’re all created equal and in the image of God. That was the sacred proposition for which Dr. King gave his life.”
Biden was invited to Atlanta by Raphael Warnock, today the main pastor of the church but also a Democratic senator who defeated a candidate endorsed by former President Donald Trump in the mid-term elections.
Warnock welcomed his guest after a Gospel song, joking that the Baptist service might seem “a little exuberant.”
As the service came to a close, the choir sang “We Shall Overcome”, an anthem of the civil rights movement based on a gospel song.
