Biden is pivoting to his legacy. He speaks Monday at the LBJ Presidential Library

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden, who belatedly chose not to seek re-election, will visit the former president’s library on Monday to make the same difficult choice he made more than half a century ago.

Biden’s speech Monday at the LBJ Presidential Library in Austin, Texas, is designed to 60th Anniversary of the Civil Rights Actannounced under President Lyndon Johnson. But the visit has taken on a very different symbolism in the two weeks it took to reschedule after Biden had to cancel it after contracting COVID-19.

The speech, originally scheduled for July 15, was once seen by the White House as an opportunity for Biden to try to make a case for save his foundering presidential campaign — delivered in the home district of Rep. Lloyd Doggett, the 15-term congressman who was the first Democratic lawmaker to publicly call for Biden to step aside.

Two weeks later, the political landscape has been reshaped. Biden is out of the race. Vice President Kamala Harris is the likely Democratic nominee. And the president is not focused on his next four years, but on the legacy of his single term and the future of democracy.

No US president has withdrawn from the race as late in the process as Biden. Johnson announced he would not seek re-election in March 1968, at the height of the Vietnam War.

Biden has often been compared to Johnson lately. Both men spoke to the nation from the Oval Office to explain their decisions. Both faced pressure from within their own parties to step aside, and both were ultimately praised for their decisions.

But their reasons were very different. Johnson stepped away in the heat of the war and spoke at length about his need to focus on the conflict. Biden, 81, had every intention from his re-election until his shaky performance in the June 27 debate raised concerns within his own party about his age and mental acuity, and whether he could win the election. Republican Donald Trump.

Biden has called Trump a serious threat to democracy, especially after the former president’s death. efforts in 2020 to the results of the elections he lost and his constant lies about that loss. The president indicated he was withdrawing from the race because he wanted to unite his party to protect democracy.

“I’ve decided that the best way forward is to pass the torch to a new generation. That’s the best way to unite our nation,” Biden said in his Oval Office speech. “Nothing, nothing can stand in the way of us saving our democracy. And that includes personal ambition.”

Biden decided to seek the presidency in 2020 after witnessing violence at a “Unite The Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017, where white supremacists carrying torches protested the removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, chanting “You will not replace us!” and “Jews will not replace us!”

Biden said he was shocked by Trump’s response, especially when the Republican told reporters that “you had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people who were very fine people, on both sides.”

Throughout his presidency, Biden has frequently prioritized equality and civil rights, including in his choice for vice president. Harris is the first womanBlack person and person of South Asian descent to get the job. She could also become the first woman elected president.

The Biden administration has worked to combat racial discrimination in the housing market. He has pardoned thousands of people convicted of federal marijuana possession charges that disproportionately affected people of color. He has also provided federal funding to help connect declining neighborhoods in the city. racially segregated or divided by road projectsand invested billions in historically black colleges and universities.

His efforts, he said, are designed to move the country forward — and to avoid any attempt to undermine the historic legislation Johnson signed in 1964, one of the most important civil rights achievements in American history.

The law made it illegal to discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. It was intended to end discrimination in schools, employment, and public facilities, and to end the unequal application of voter registration requirements.

Johnson signed the bill five hours after Congress approved it, saying the nation was in a “testing time” and “we must not fail.” He added: “Let us close the wells of racial poison. Let us pray for wise and understanding hearts. Let us put aside irrelevant differences and make our nation whole.”

Eight years later, Johnson hosted a civil rights symposium, where civil rights activists gathered to fight for greater progress.

“The progress has been too small; we have not done nearly enough,” he said at the 1972 symposium. “Until we overcome the unequal history, we cannot overcome the unequal opportunity … There is still work to be done, so let us continue.”

Biden has said he is “committed to getting as much done as possible” in his final six months in office, including signing major legislation to expand voting rights and a federal policing bill named after George Floyd.

“I will continue to defend our personal freedoms and our civil rights, from the right to vote to the right to choose,” Biden said from the Oval Office. “I will continue to call out hate and extremism, and make it clear that there is no place, no place in America for political violence or any violence, period.”

Later Monday, Biden will also travel to Houston to pay his respects to the late Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, who died on July 19 at the age of 74.