ATLANTA, GEORGIA - MAY 19: U.S. President Joe Biden speaks at the Morehouse College Commencement as a faculty member stands and faces away from the stage in protest of the Israel-Hamas war on May 19, 2024 in Atlanta, Georgia. President Biden is appearing at the school during a time when pro-Palestinian demonstrations are still occurring on campuses across the country to protest Israel's war in Gaza. (Photo by Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images)

President Joe Biden renewed his call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and highlighted federal spending in historically Black colleges during Sunday’s speech before hundreds of Morehouse College graduates who represent a demographic Biden needs to win the Nov. 5 election.

Biden’s role as commencement speaker at the storied historically Black college in Atlanta had been met with concern from those who disagree with his handling of Israel’s military response to Hamas’ attack on Oct. 7, as well as from those who feared it would be a distraction from the graduates’ achievement.

Biden’s roughly 25-minute speech went uninterrupted and ended with Biden receiving an honorary degree from Morehouse as the crowd applauded.

“I’m not going home,” Biden quipped with a broad smile after receiving the honor.

But there were some visible signs of discontent on the campus, which is the alma mater of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. and which has a long history of social activism. Off campus, well over 100 people, many of them students, gathered to protest Biden’s appearance, largely over his continued support of Israel.

Some graduates, including the college’s valedictorian who wore a small Palestinian flag pin on his stole, displayed some form of the Palestinian flag. A faculty member stood as Biden spoke and turned away with her fist in the air.

With Biden sitting nearby, valedictorian Deangelo Jeremiah Fletcher called for the release of all hostages and for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.

“It is only right for the class of 2024 to utilize any platform provided to stand in solidarity with peace and justice,” Fletcher said in his speech.

Biden clapped and then greeted Fletcher with a handshake as the graduate left the stage and later addressed the issue in his speech, saying there is a “humanitarian crisis in Gaza.” He renewed his call for an immediate ceasefire and said he is actively working to find a solution.

“It’s one of the hardest, most complicated problems in the world. There’s nothing easy about it,” Biden said to the graduates. “I know it angers and frustrates many of you, including my family. But most of all, I know it breaks your heart. It breaks mine as well.

“Leadership is about fighting through the most intractable problems. It’s about challenging anger, frustration, and heartbreak to find a solution. It’s about doing what you believe is right, even when it’s hard and lonely,” he said.

The speech at Morehouse happened as Biden continues to trail his GOP rival former President Donald Trump in the polls and amid concerns about waning enthusiasm for Biden among young Black voters, who are usually an important part of the Democratic base.

In a New York Times poll published earlier this month, 26% of voters between 18 and 29 said they would vote for Biden if the election were held today, less than any other age group. Another 30% said they would vote for Trump, also less than any other age group.

Biden pledged to continue supporting HBCUs on Sunday, while touting that during his administration, the federal funding for HBCUs has eclipsed a record $16 billion. And he warned of the threats extremists pose to democracy.

“Extremists close the doors of opportunity, strike down affirmative action, attack the values of diversity, equality and inclusion,” he said.

“I never thought I’d be a president at a time when there’s a national effort to ban books. Not to write history, but to erase history. They don’t see you in the future of America, but they’re wrong. To me, we make history, not erase it. We know Black history is American history.”

Rasheed Canton, who graduated from Morehouse on Sunday, said Biden’s commencement speech and the protest calls were hard to ignore as the spring semester wound down. Canton, however, said he wasn’t surprised that Biden’s speech and the rest of the commencement ceremony went smoothly despite simmering tensions.

He said that Trump and Biden will try to spur young Black voters to the polls in November, whether through financial pledges or other promises of support.

“Biden will need to make up some ground heading into November, especially if the war remains at the forefront of minds,” the DeKalb County native said following Sunday’s ceremony. “I’ll still be supporting the Democratic presidential candidate, who I think best represents the values of myself, my Morehouse brothers and the Black community overall.”

Morehouse College released a statement following the graduation ceremony stating the administration was upholding the school’s tradition of supporting the rights of people to protest on behalf of social justice issues in a peaceful manner. The statement also applauded the federal funding for HBCUs and the president’s calls for a ceasefire in the Gaza strip.

“The world frequently quotes our most famous and beloved alumnus, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., but the world must know that without Morehouse, there would be no Dr. King,” the statement said. “It is fitting that a moment of organized, peaceful activism would occur on our campus while the world is watching to continue a critical conversation. We are proud of the resilient class of 2024’s unity in silent protest, showing their intentionality in strategy, communication, and coordination as a 412-person unit.”

Protesters march outside Morehouse campus

While Morehouse commencement’s ceremony was underway, more than 100 demonstrators gathered at a nearby park before marching to Morehouse. Police officers on bicycles pedaled alongside the marchers and blocked them from entering the campus, but the protest remained peaceful.

Standing outside one of the school’s entrances, protesters banged drums and chanted slogans like “Free Palestine” and “Come November, we’ll remember.”

“I don’t like that he’s here,” said Morehouse junior Daxton Pettus. 

“I think it is horrible that he is here when he has committed atrocious acts against the Black community as far as mass incarceration and supporting bills that further that, atrocious acts as far as sending aid to Israel to aid in their war crimes, and atrocious acts against students, especially, Morehouse-Spelman students were already brutalized at the Emory occupation, and the school failed to say anything, but the president did, and what he said is that those students are violent and that the responses were adequate, and I think that’s inappropriate because that sort of language, it allows for us to be brutalized for those people’s voices to be suppressed.”

Many of the young marchers said Biden’s appearance smacks of election-year pandering for Black votes, which they said stings all the more because of Morehouse’s association with the Civil Rights Movement.

Andrea Richmond is immersed in the Atlanta University Center Consortium, the group of historic Black colleges in Atlanta that includes Morehouse, Spelman College and Clark Atlanta University. Richmond graduated from Spelman in 2019 and has a brother who went to Morehouse and a sister who went to Clark Atlanta. Her mom worked at Morehouse for 25 years.

“I’ve grown up in the AUC,” she said. “I’ve seen a lot of actions at the AUC. I’ve heard about the aura of the AUC, and I want the AUC to actually stand for what it talks about, which is not only the promotion of Black individuals, but also the promotion of all marginalized people.”

Georgia Recorder is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Georgia Recorder maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor John McCosh for questions: info@georgiarecorder.com. Follow Georgia Recorder on Facebook and Twitter.

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Former President Donald Trump was booked and quickly released at the Fulton County Jail Thursday evening during a trip from New Jersey to Atlanta that played out on primetime TV and capped a drama-filled day outside the facility.

Trump’s sprawling motorcade arrived at the jail at about 7:30 p.m. And he was released after about 20 minutes on a $200,000 bond agreement that bars him from threatening or intimidating anyone involved in the case – including on social media where the former president is prolific.

He is accused of violating Georgia’s RICO Act and a litany of other charges tied to efforts to overturn the election in a state where he lost by nearly 12,000 votes.

The Fulton County indictment represents Trump’s fourth this year and the first where his mugshot was taken. He faces 13 charges in Georgia, where he is accused of working with his allies to try to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Trump has dismissed the charges as politically motivated and claims he genuinely believed the 2020 presidential election was rigged and stolen. The former president, who is the front-runner in the GOP race to challenge President Joe Biden next year, called the indictments a form of “election interference.”

“We did nothing wrong at all, and we have every right – every single right – to challenge an election that we think is dishonest, and we think it’s very dishonest,” Trump said during brief remarks to some reporters outside the jail Thursday.

But he is accused of taking his challenge too far. The Fulton County indictment handed up by a grand jury last week alleges that Trump and 18 others were part of a “criminal organization” that tried to illegally overturn the 2020 election results through a fake elector plot.

Twelve of the 19 defendants have been booked this week, including the surrender of Trump’s former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, earlier in the day Thursday. Trump’s former personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, turned himself in Wednesday.

The remaining seven, including a state senator who served as an “alternate” elector, have until noon Friday to surrender.

Read the 98-page indictment here.

Georgia’s election results were confirmed three times, including one recount that was done by hand. A state-led investigation and multiple lawsuits also failed to turn up the widespread fraud Trump has long falsely claimed thwarted his bid for a second term. Trump’s own Attorney General in 2020 told the former president that he’d lost Georgia’s election and there was no evidence of fraud.

Thursday also brought a flurry of legal filings about the venue for some of the defendants and the pace of the trial.

A Georgia state judge has scheduled an Oct. 23 racketeering trial for Kenneth Chesebro, who was an attorney for the Trump campaign. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis asked the judge, Scott McAfee, Thursday to schedule the trial for all 19 defendants on that date, an unexpectedly quick turnaround Willis proposed in response to Chesebro’s demand for a speedy trial.

McAfee ruled Thursday the trial date would only apply to Chesebro.

Chesebro is accused of violating Georgia’s RICO Act and committing other offenses as part of a scheme to appoint false electors. In Georgia he allegedly supplied the documents alternate GOP electors signed that said they appropriately cast the state’s 16 electoral ballots for Trump.

‘I have seen no real crime’

Outside the jail, Trump’s fans outnumbered his critics as his most ardent backers traveled from all over the country to line up along Rice Street in a show of support. A throng of reporters from all over the world gathered outside the county jail to observe the historic moment.

Many of Trump’s fans said the former president’s growing rap sheet – on top of two impeachment proceedings – is only making them more skeptical of the claims of his wrongdoing.

“Racketeering is about stealing money and stuff like that. That makes no sense,” said west Cobb County resident Jerry Ramsey, citing legal experts who have appeared on Fox News. “If you show me that some real crime was committed, then I might change my mind. But I have seen no real crime.”

Ramsey argues that Trump did what anyone else would do after coming up short in an election.

“Here in Georgia, he just called and said ‘Would y’all recount the vote?’ If I lost an election, I’d do the same thing,” he said.

Ray Worth, who lives in Carroll County, said he came out Thursday to “support freedom, the ability for us to speak freely.” He called Trump “an advocate for free speech.”

Worth said he doesn’t expect any evidence to come out that will convince him that Trump ran afoul of the law. He argues Trump was simply questioning the election results.

“You’re allowed to do that. This is a free country. It’s called freedom. You’re allowed to say what you feel is actually true. I believe what I feel is true, and he does too,” Worth said.

Trump’s brief jailhouse visit capped a long day filled with circus-like energy on an intensely hot August day. Some people were wearing costumes, including multiple “Uncle Sams” and some rats and a wolf that represented the anti-Trump crowd.

Several hours prior to the anticipated arrival of former President Trump, protesters were squaring off with dueling chants and shouting verbal jabs at one another. The sometimes-profane chants included calls to lock up Biden and Trump.

During the late afternoon, members of the Black Trump group were joined by self-proclaimed Mayor of Magaville rapper Forgiato Blow and others for an impromptu jam session featuring songs like Blow’s “Trump Saved the USA.”

Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene showed up at the jail as Trump’s plane was landing at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, fresh off her trip to Wisconsin to serve as a surrogate for Trump at the first GOP presidential debate that he snubbed.

Greene swapped out her profile on social media with a mock mugshot in a show of solidarity, she told Right Side Broadcasting Network, a conservative network. “I’m ashamed of Georgia,” Greene said in the friendly interview.

But it wasn’t all Trump supporters outside the county jail on Rice Street.

One anti-Trump group outside the jail on Thursday was the Republicans Against Trump, also known as RAT. Its members wore black and white striped prison jumpsuits and full rat costumes. Their leader, Domenic Santana, said they want to see Trump held accountable for attempting to disrupt Georgia’s election process.

Meanwhile, Nadine Seiler flew down this week from Maryland to witness the historic arrest of Trump.

One of the few anti-Trump demonstrators to show up Thursday led to testy verbal confrontations with Trump supporters as she carried a banner proclaiming “Finally, Trump Arrested.”

“He tried to steal the vote of Black and brown people,” Seiler said. “That’s why he’s here because he tried to disenfranchise Black and brown voters.”

Georgia Recorder Editor John McCosh contributed to this report. 

Georgia Recorder is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Georgia Recorder maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor John McCosh for questions: info@georgiarecorder.com. Follow Georgia Recorder on Facebook and Twitter.

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ATLANTA, GEORGIA - DECEMBER 06: Georgia Democratic Senate candidate U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) speaks during an election night watch party at the Marriott Marquis on December 6, 2022 in Atlanta, Georgia. Sen. Warnock has tonight defeated his Republican challenger Herschel Walker in a runoff election. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Democratic U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock will return to Washington to represent Georgia for the next six years after winning his Senate runoff Tuesday, handing Senate Democrats a coveted 51st seat.

The Associated Press called the race at 10:26 p.m. Tuesday. By early Wednesday morning, Warnock had 51.3% of the vote, edging out Republican Herschel Walker by about 90,000 votes, according to unofficial results.

More than 1.8 million people voted in the shortened early voting period, and another 1.6 million voters cast a ballot Tuesday when steady turnout was reported across the state.

Warnock’s win will boost the spirits of Georgia Democrats, who failed to win any other statewide office last month. Warnock led Walker by nearly 38,000 votes last month, but did not achieve 50% of the vote, forcing the runoff.

His victory will also give Senate Democrats 51 seats, cementing their slim majority and giving them more power in committees and in approving federal and judicial appointments. Democrats narrowly lost the House in November’s midterm election.

Warnock greeted hundreds of jubilant supporters at a ballroom in the downtown Atlanta Marriott Marquis, walking on stage to chants of “six more years.” He told stories of being raised in Savannah’s public housing as the son of a mother who as a teenager worked as a sharecropper and a father who was a small business owner and pastor.

Warnock said the fruits of hard work bore out last night as Georgians put faith into action by voting.

“Georgia you have been praying with your lips and your legs, with your hands and with your heads and your heart,” Warnock said. “You’ve put in the hard work and here we are standing together.”

In a concession speech at the College Football Hall of Fame in Atlanta, Walker thanked his supporters and said he was proud of what his team had accomplished.

“One of the things I want to tell all of you is you never stop dreaming,” he said. “I don’t want any of you to stop dreaming. I don’t want any of you to stop believing in America. I want you to believe in America and continue to believe in the Constitution and believe in our elected officials. Most of all, continue to pray for them because of all the prayers you’ve given me, I felt those prayers.”

President Joe Biden said he called to congratulate Warnock.

“Tonight Georgia voters stood up for our democracy, rejected Ultra MAGAism, and most importantly: sent a good man back to the Senate. Here’s to six more years,” Biden said on Twitter.

A whirlwind runoff

This is not Warnock’s first runoff win. In 2020, he and fellow Democrat Jon Ossoff went down to the wire against former Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, becoming Georgia’s first Black and Jewish senators. Their narrow wins gave Democrats control of the Senate and inspired pundits to label Georgia a purple state.

Senators serve a six-year term, but Warnock’s 2020 win only earned him the right to finish the term of the late Republican Sen. Johnny Isakson, who retired due to his failing health.

Warnock jokes about how often his name has appeared on the ballot in just two years.

“Here’s why you know I want this job: This is the fifth time my name has been on the ballot in less than two years for the same doggone job,” he told supporters at a rally last week.

In response to the 2020 election, which drew unsubstantiated claims of fraud from former President Donald Trump and his backers, GOP lawmakers passed a sweeping election reform bill which, among other changes, shortened the runoff period to four weeks, down from nine in 2020.

The state intended to forego Saturday voting during the runoff, arguing that the available Saturday could not be used because it followed Thanksgiving and a state holiday formerly honoring Confederate General Robert E. Lee. Warnock and his allies successfully sued, and the Saturday vote brought out big numbers among Democratic leaning counties.

Warnock enjoyed a significant lead among early voters, and while Walker’s tally crept up throughout Tuesday night thanks to Election Day voters, he failed to overcome Warnock’s firewall.

By 10 p.m., Walker had chipped away at Warnock’s early lead. The results, however, were actually trending against the former University of Georgia running back.

A few minutes prior to 10:30 pm, CNN, NPR and the Associated Press and other national outlets projected Warnock the winner even with thousands of remaining votes left to be counted.

A repudiation of Trump?

Walker’s loss represents a blow to Trump as he prepares for his 2024 presidential run. Walker is close with Trump, and the former executive’s endorsement helped him win the GOP primary in May, but party leaders reportedly discouraged Trump from traveling to Georgia to promote Walker due to his low approval ratings.

Outgoing Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, a Republican who has been an outspoken critic of Trump, said on CNN Tuesday night that he hopes Walker’s loss will spark a move away from the former president. Trump endorsed a slate of GOP candidates in Georgia, and only one of his favored candidates, Lt. Gov.-elect Burt Jones, won.

“He’s not picking these candidates because he thinks it’s good for the country or the party. He gave up caring about this country when he lied about the election. He cares about himself. And these candidates that he’s picking are pawns,” Duncan said.

“We need to hold Donald Trump accountable, and I hope sooner than later, he’s in the rearview here. We need to use this as a pivot point for us to move forward with a GOP 2.0 or call it what you want,” he said, adding that Republicans need a “new direction.”

Instead of hewing toward the political center as candidates tend to do, Walker ran on cultural conservative issues like restricting transgender athletes from playing on school teams, limiting abortion access and eliminating “wokeism” from the military.

That was too much for voters like Francisca Small, an East Cobb Army veteran who calls herself a lifelong Republican or Libertarian. She was one of the 81,000 voters who backed Libertarian Chase Oliver in the November general election and said the thought of voting for either Walker or Warnock made her stomach churn, but pulling the lever for Warnock made her slightly less queasy.

“I voted for Warnock. I don’t agree with 99% of his platform,” she said. “But it’s the women’s right to choose. It’s the individual’s right to choose their own path, whether you’re trans and you want to choose who you’re supposed to be or you’re a child who doesn’t know what gender you want to be or what sexual orientation you have, that’s important, the ability to choose.”

Others, like Lawrenceville resident Lee Freeman, were proud to cast their vote for Warnock. A lifelong Georgian who has been delighted by Gwinnett County’s shift to the left in recent election cycles, she cast a ballot for Warnock at the Gwinnett County Fairgrounds Tuesday.

Like Small, Freeman said she has been turned off by Republicans’ positions on LGBTQ issues, especially since several of her friends identify as part of that community. The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to end the federal protection of abortion rights also has her on edge.

“We already lost Roe v. Wade, and I really feel like there are other measures that are on the chopping block if Republicans take the Senate and the House,” Freeman said.

LGBTQ organizations were among the first to congratulate Warnock on his win.

Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson called the senator “one of our strongest partners in advancing the cause of LGBTQ+ equality.”

“It should not be lost on anyone that Senator Warnock’s political opponents spent millions of dollars attacking him for his support for our community. They have failed. Georgians rejected these reckless attacks tonight,” she said in a statement.

A flawed candidate

Walker’s campaign was beset from the beginning by a host of scandals ranging from accusations of violent behavior toward his family, lies about his past achievements and former girlfriends who said he helped them get abortions despite his current anti-abortion stance.

Some Republicans like Elizabeth Jones, who cast her ballot at Sutallee Baptist Church, admitted Walker was not their first choice.

“The other guy is, as much as they slandered Herschel, is not much better,” she said, adding that she opposed Warnock’s position on abortion. “I don’t think Herschel Walker was our best candidate. I think Trump should have stayed out of it. I really liked (Kelvin) King. He was going to be a wonderful senator. And hopefully he’ll run in the future, but we can’t let our Senate go, so I didn’t have a choice.”

Others said they were proud to vote for Walker, often referencing the economy or their faith as key factors.

Tamekia White, a Snellville resident who is a small business owner and the mother of three, said Walker’s debate performance cemented her decision to vote for him.

A former Democratic voter, White said she has started leaning more toward Republican candidates in the last decade because she says they better represent her Christian views. White said she is frustrated by others’ assumptions that she must be a Democrat because she is Black woman.

“I don’t understand how a Christian pastor, who teaches God’s sheep the Word of God, thinks that abortion is OK,” White said, referring to Warnock. “And this is just one issue of many.

“But a person who believes the Bible, I don’t understand how they cannot believe God when he says, ‘I knew you before you were in your mother’s womb.’”

Warnock, a pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, campaigned on his history of public service while seeming to distance himself from Biden and national Democrats as conservative Georgians blamed them for a tumultuous economy. At campaign events, Warnock often touted money-saving measures he pushed like capping insulin costs for seniors on Medicare.

Movie director and producer Spike Lee and Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens were among the luminaries, union representatives, and elected officials taking the stage at Warnock’s celebration proudly declaring that Warnock would not be denied.

Lee, an Atlanta native and Morehouse College graduate, said the nation is at a pivotal point with “agent orange” – former President Donald Trump – re-emerging to seek another term in office.

“The struggle continues for our people of color today,” Lee said. “Our ancestors are looking down upon us and they’re telling us to continue to do the right thing.”

Dickens said he lived out a “never let them see you sweat” motto like Warnock in a close 2021 mayoral campaign before decisively winning his runoff.

“This is the day,” Dickens said. “We are marching onto victory tonight.”

Georgia Recorder reporters Stanley Dunlap and Jill Nolin contributed to this report. 

This article was first published by the Georgia Recorder.

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