Civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis announced his support for former Vice President Joe Biden in his fight to win the Democratic nomination and take on President Trump in November.
Lewis’s Tuesday endorsement of Biden was the latest in a show of support from African American lawmakers, demonstrating Biden’s support among the black community. Lewis is the 38th member of the Congressional Black Caucus to endorse Biden’s presidential bid.
“I read about Joe Biden when he became an elected official. I heard him speak. I met him,” Lewis told reporters on a Monday night conference call ahead of the announcement. “And he’s been a friend, a dear friend. He’s a man of courage, a man with a great conscience, a man of faith. He will be a great president. He will lead our country to a better place.”
In a video released by the Biden campaign, Lewis elaborated, “I know hatred when I see it. I have felt it. I’ve stared down the deepest and darkest forces in this nation. Over the past four years, I’ve seen the same kind of evil rear its head again.”
He added, “You judge the character of a man by how he chooses to respond to that moral obligation. Vice President Joe Biden has never stopped speaking up for his fellow man.”
In 1965, Lewis participated in the march for voting rights from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, a day and event that became known as “Bloody Sunday,” where he was left with a fractured skull. The Georgia lawmaker also pointed to his civil rights background as part of why he decided to back Biden.
“I would tell young people the story of Selma and Montgomery and Mississippi,” he said. “If we fail to vote, we don’t count. The vote is the most powerful nonviolent tool we have in a democratic society. And we must use it.”
Lewis, who is battling stage 4 pancreatic cancer, also encouraged the former vice president to select a woman of color to be on his presidential ticket.
“I think Vice President Biden should look around,” Lewis said. “It would be good to have a woman of color, it would be good to have a woman. … And we have plenty of able women, some are white, Latino, Asian American, Native American. I think the time has long passed for making the White House look like the whole of America.”
Biden’s campaign reportedly considered Georgia’s primary, which was originally scheduled for March 24, as a likely knockout blow for his only remaining opponent, independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. The state has been pushed back its contest to May 19 amid the coronavirus pandemic.
