Morehouse College anti-war protests not likely before Biden’s campus visit
ATLANTA — As President Joe Biden prepares to give graduation remarks this month at Morehouse College in Atlanta, a prestigious historically Black institution, the White House is signaling anxiety about the potential for protests over the war in the Gaza Strip.
During a recent visit to Atlanta, Vice President Kamala Harris stopped to ask the Morehouse student government president about the sentiment on campus about the conflict, how students felt about Biden’s visit and what the graduating class would like to hear from him May 19.
Then, on Friday, the White House dispatched the leader of its public engagement office and one of its most senior Black officials, Stephen Benjamin, to the Morehouse campus for meetings to take the temperature of students, faculty members and administrators.
The reasons for concern are clear: Nationwide demonstrations over the war and Biden’s approach to it have inflamed more than 60 colleges and universities, stoked tensions within the Democratic Party and created new headaches for his reelection bid. Yet Biden appears to be entering a different type of scene at Morehouse.
While anger over the war remains palpable at Morehouse, these campuses have been largely free of turmoil, and tensions are far less evident: no encampments, few loud protests and little sign of Palestinian flags flying from dorm windows.
The reasons stem from political, cultural and socioeconomic differences with other institutions of higher learning.
While HBCU hosts a range of political views, domestic concerns tend to outweigh foreign policy in the minds of most students. Many started lower on the economic ladder and are more intently focused on their education and their job prospects after graduation.
At Morehouse — which has a legacy of civil rights protests and is Martin Luther King Jr.’s alma mater — discontent over the war in Gaza has played out in classrooms and auditoriums rather than on campus lawns. “This should not be a place that cancels people regardless of if we agree with them,” David Thomas, the Morehouse president, said in an interview Thursday. Of Biden’s visit, he said, “Whether people support the decision or not, they are committed to having it happen on our campus in a way that doesn’t undermine the integrity or dignity of the school.”
Some students have held contentious meetings with university leaders and urged them to rescind Biden’s invitation, and a small group of faculty members has vowed not to attend commencement. Some alumni wrote a letter expressing worries that student protesters could be punished, noting Morehouse’s history of “celebrating student activists long after they have graduated.”
But the college might appear politically safer for the president to visit than many others. Morehouse is a custom-bound place where undergraduates traditionally do not step on the grass in the heart of campus until they receive their degrees.
Alumni view commencement as a distinguished event not only for students but for scores of family and community members — making it a less likely venue for a major disruption.
Biden chose to speak at Morehouse after the White House had received invitations from an array of colleges. It will be the third time in four years he has addressed graduates of a historically Black institution; he has also spoken at commencement for one military academy each year.
Among those lobbying Biden to come to Morehouse was Cedric Richmond, a member of the college’s class of 1995, who ran Biden’s public engagement office and is now a senior adviser at the Democratic National Committee.
Richmond, who has a nephew at Morehouse, predicted Biden would speak about the high expectations of the college’s alumni, promote his record of reducing Black unemployment and narrowing the racial wealth gap, and deliver familiar exhortations about perseverance.
Richmond does not think Biden will face protests. “The Morehouse College graduation, as I remember it, is a very solemn event,” he said. “You have almost 500 African American males walking across that stage, whose parents and grandparents sacrificed, and those students worked their butts off to, one, get into Morehouse, and two, to graduate. That’s a very significant day. And I’m just not sure whether students or protesters are going to interfere with that solemn moment.”
Biden has been trailed by Gaza protesters for months. The last time he spoke at college campus was in January, when demonstrators interrupted him at least 10 times during a rally at George Mason University in Virginia.
King said it was a place where he had advanced his understanding of nonviolent protest and moral leadership — which current Morehouse students say they take seriously.