Biden leaves an outstanding civil rights legacy, blueprint for America’s future

It’s hard to understand history while it’s happening. The passions of the moment and personal prejudices can cloud our vision.

But history will render its judgment, and I believe it will deem Joseph R. Biden one of the most consequential presidents in American history.

He stepped into office in one of our darkest hours. The COVID-19 pandemic and the murder of George Floyd hit the nation like an earthquake, exposing the fault lines of systemic racism in our health care institutions, our economy and our criminal justice system.

The previous administration had responded with willful denial, fanning the flames of racial resentment and compounding our despair. Biden responded with a historic commitment to racial justice and equity. On his first day in office, he signed an unprecedented executive order acknowledging the entrenched disparities in the nation’s laws and public policies and “the unbearable human costs of systemic racism.”

For the first time in history, an American president committed the whole of the federal government to affirmatively advancing equity, civil rights, racial justice and equal opportunity. That commitment yielded the most diverse — and as a result, the most effective — Cabinet in history, the first Black woman vice president and Supreme Court justice, and the most meaningful policy changes for Black Americans since the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act of the mid-1960s.

Biden’s term is proof that what’s good for Black Americans is good for all Americans. He presided over the fastest recovery from the COVID-induced global economic collapse of any country in the world, the lowest Black unemployment rate in history and the lowest overall unemployment rate in more than half a century.

At the same time, as Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in an interview with CNBC, “all Americans, both those who are well off and those who are near the bottom of the income distribution, are better off now. Their wages have risen more than prices.

Economics, policing reform, voting rights

As a candidate in 2020, Biden became the first general election candidate to put forward a policy agenda for Black America. The plan, titled Lift Every Voice, committed to prosecuting hate crimes, fighting gun violence and fighting poverty through significant investments in education, housing and small businesses. Earlier this year, the National Urban League evaluated those commitments to Black America, tracking both accomplishments and unfinished business.

Through a series of bills investing in America’s infrastructure, work force, technological advantage and climate, the Biden administration created opportunities for generations of Black Americans to prosper.

Thanks to the historic investment in promoting Black-owned businesses, including permanent authorization for the Minority Business Development Agency, the share of Black households owning a business more than doubled, from 5% to 11%, between 2019 and 2022. The number of Black businesses is growing at the fastest rate in 30 years.

While obstructionists in Congress blocked comprehensive police reform legislation, Biden’s policing executive order banned choke holds, restricted no-knock warrants and entries, imposed stricter use-of-force policies, required anti-bias training, prohibited the transfer of military equipment to police departments, created a national Law Enforcement Accountability Database of police misconduct records and required the Department of Justice to use grant-making to incentivize reform around the country.

Congress also continues to block the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote Act, but Biden used his executive authority to expand access to the ballot. His executive order issued on the anniversary of Bloody Sunday, March 7, 2021, charged federal agencies to provide election information to voters and to expand opportunities to register to vote through federal offices. The DOJ created an Election Threats Task Force to identify and prosecute threats of violence against election officials.

It is my sincere wish the next president will continue to carry the torch of racial justice that Biden’s administration ignited, and the presidential campaign proceeds in a spirit of civility and national unity, remaining focused on the unfinished work of creating an equitable and inclusive society that creates opportunity for all Americans.

Marc H. Morial is president and CEO of the National Urban League and was mayor of New Orleans from 1994 to 2002. He writes a twice-monthly column for the Sun-Times.

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