COLUMBIA, S.C. — COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — President Joe Biden on Sunday praised the existence of Black churches, saying the world would be a different place if they weren’t there to show people the “power of faith” in dark times.
The Democratic president spoke at St. John Baptist Church on the final day of a two-day visit to South Carolina aimed at rallying black voters before the party’s Feb. 3 primary.
Biden visited a predominantly black barbershop and spoke at a Democratic Party dinner after flying in on Saturday. He concluded the visit on Sunday by addressing worshipers in individual churches.
The president is trying to spread the message that he is loyal to South Carolina, which saved his 2020 campaign, and that he is committed to winning back black voters here and elsewhere who were central to his nomination, but this time be less enthusiastic about him. all around.
A practicing Roman Catholic who attends Mass every Sunday, Biden praised Black churches in his appearance before the Baptist congregation, saying the churches teach the “power of faith.”
He asked worshipers to imagine “what would have happened if there had not been a black church” to turn to in times of darkness.
“Well, you give us a mountaintop, you give us a promised land, you give us a dream and the faith that we will overcome, we can overcome,” he said, echoing the words once spoken by the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. were spoken.
“And you are pushing us toward a more perfect union, truly, to bend together the arc of the moral universe toward justice, and what a gift to the nation and the world you have been.
“Your prayers mean everything,” Biden said.
After speaking, Biden issued a written statement on the deaths of three U.S. service members and the injuries of many others in a drone strike in northeastern Jordan near the Syrian border. He attributed the attack to Iranian-backed militias.
Later on Sunday, the president briefly addressed the drone strike and asked for a moment of silence as he appeared in the banquet hall of Brookland Baptist Church. Biden has a long-term relationship with the Rev. Charles Jackson. Jackson’s wife, Robin, is first lady Jill Biden’s prayer partner.
Earlier this month, Biden gave one of his first campaign speeches of the year at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, where nine Black parishioners were shot dead in 2015 by the white stranger they invited to their Bible study.
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Associated Press writer Darlene Superville in Washington contributed to this report.