Joe Biden is more than this moment.
The crisis the president has struggled with for the past month should not erase his some 50 years of near-continuous service to the American people. Among other things, he has delivered time and again for Black America. That will be Mr. Biden’s legacy.
It’s for that reason that Democrats must now support the woman who has stood alongside him throughout his presidency. In the 2020 election, more than 81 million Americans voted for her to lead in the event that the president could not. We should give her the support she deserves in this moment. The attacks on her, as the highest elected Black woman in American history, will be unlike anything we’ve ever seen.
I have been thinking in recent days about a conversation I had with Mr. Biden when he was running four years ago. He told me in private he decided to come out of a well-deserved retirement because of what he saw in Charlottesville in 2017. A violent parade of neo-Nazis and Klansmen taking over the streets, and a spineless president who could not muster the courage to denounce racism, disgusted him enough that in his late 70s, he decided to put himself and his family through the ringer to save the soul of our nation.
His fierce commitment to delivering on promises has made him an incredibly effective president in just one term. He made a pledge during the campaign to select the first female vice president. He did. He vowed to Representative Jim Clyburn that he would put a Black woman on the Supreme Court. He delivered us Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. He promised me executive action on police accountability. I stood alongside him and the family of George Floyd as he signed an executive order to strengthen accountability in federal law enforcement agencies.
History will remember what this former lion of the Senate accomplished from the West Wing to improve Black communities across the nation. Just look at the American Rescue Plan, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act. These are giant accomplishments for any president, all packed into less than a full term. America will feel the impact of these legislative actions for generations to come.
At the National Action Network’s M.L.K. Day Legislative Breakfast last year, President Biden translated what this means for Black America. Our children and grandchildren will no longer drink water from pipes riddled with lead. Many will not have to struggle with student loan payments thanks to the billions of dollars in debt canceled by the administration. Medicare recipients won’t have to sacrifice food over insulin payments, thanks to a cap on medicine costs. Black unemployment is very low because the White House created 2.6 million jobs for Black workers in President Biden’s first three years in office. Black wealth is on the rise as a result of these efforts, which will set us up to finally close the financial and employment equity gaps and control our own future.
I have never shied away from calling out an elected official, from the local dog catcher to the leader of the free world. President Biden has not been immune to my loud mouth over the last 40 years. I disagreed with him on the Clarence Thomas hearings. I marched against the omnibus crime bill in 1994. Two years later, I opposed the Welfare Reform Act. But each time I have spoke up, he’s listened and then acted.
Not getting behind the woman Joe Biden trusted over the past four years would put at risk these victories and the momentum to finish the job. Vice President Kamala Harris’s fingerprints are on every one of these legislative wins for Black America. I know because I have been as blunt with her as I have with the president. And, like him, she’s always listened and come back with solutions.
Every president leaves office wishing they had done more — one more bill passed, one more executive order or one more day in office. President Biden has been committed to seeing the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement and the George Floyd Justice in Policing acts passed. He reaffirmed that promise when he addressed the National Action Network’s annual convention this April. Vice President Harris has made the same promise to see these essential pieces of legislation enacted into law.
The best way to preserve President Biden’s legacy is to continue fighting for his agenda. Kamala Harris is our best hope for that. Black America and all Democrats must stand behind her in this moment because of what is at stake for the future of this nation.
Questions have already arisen from within the Democratic Party on whether Vice President Harris is the best person to beat Donald Trump come November. The answer is simple. She will bring new energy to Americans who have seen voting rights eroded, affirmative action gutted and women’s rights ripped away. Vice President Harris can mobilize those who were most bruised by four years of Mr. Trump, just as Barack Obama did for those pressed into the margins over eight years of George W. Bush. My question back to them would be: Who else can do that right now?
The attacks from Mr. Trump and the G.O.P. awaiting her will be fierce. Black women have always been America’s favorite punching bag. Get ready to see ugly stereotypes, questions about her record and verbal attacks taken to the next level. To sit idly by and allow this to happen unchallenged will put us all at risk.
Now the fracas of the past month is finally ebbing, Democrats have a duty to get back on track. The party is proving true the old proverb that Democrats fall in love, but Republicans fall in line. The G.O.P. is united right now to get Donald Trump back into the White House, despite his unfitness for office. Doing so would usher in Project 2025, which if fully implemented could upend democracy in America.
President Biden was committed to staying in this race because he understands what is at stake. Now, we must support his ally of the past four years to ensure these G.O.P. proposals don’t become policy.
The night he won the presidency, President Biden quoted a line from the poet Seamus Heaney: “The longed-for tidal wave of justice can rise up, and hope and history rhyme.” Hope and history indeed synced over the past four years. It is on all of us to keep the rhythm going.
The Rev. Al Sharpton is a civil rights leader and the founder of the National Action Network. This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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