Given at the end is an article. Analyze it and output in the following JSON format.
{
"analysis": {
"bias": {
"score": "1-10, where 1-10 measures UNFAIR or UNHELPFUL bias.
As the AI analyst, you must judge:
1. Fairness of Bias:
- Is the tone/alarm proportional to events?
- Is criticism warranted by facts?
- Are similar actions judged equally?
2. Utility of Bias:
- Does the bias help readers understand real implications?
- Does it highlight genuine concerns that neutral language might minimize?
- Does it provide valuable context through its perspective?
Example: An article about climate change might use emotional language
and scary scenarios. While this is technically 'bias', it might be
USEFUL bias if it helps readers grasp real dangers that cold, neutral
language would understate.
A high bias score should only be given when bias is both unfair AND unhelpful.",
"description": "Explain both unfair and useful bias found. For each biased element:
1. Is it fair/warranted?
2. Does it serve a valuable purpose for readers?
3. Should it be removed or retained?"
},
"missing_context_misinformation": {
"score": "1-10",
"points": [
"", # DIRECTLY provide essential context the reader needs without ANY phrases like "the article lacks/doesn't/fails to mention/omits" etc. Simply state the relevant facts. Each point up to 5 sentences as needed. Up to 10 points. NEVER refer to the article itself or what it's missing - just supply the information directly. The missing context should try to compensate for the bias in the article, and not just add related information.
]
},
"disinformation_lies": {
"score": "1-10",
"points": [
"" # Provide corrections for verifiably false statement. These lines should be brief. Upto 10 points.
# Use Wikipedia (via the search tool) to verify events and dates up through 2025-06-20. Any event dated ≤ 2025-06-20 should not be marked as disinformation if it matches Wikipedia. Only flag statements you can not verify or that Wikipedia contradicts as of 2025-06-20.”
]
}
},
"summary": [], # A list of 2 to 5 paragraphs. Provide a version that: * Retains key facts and proportional concerns, * Removes unfair bias while keeping warranted criticism, * Adds critical missing context, * Corrects any inaccuracies. Remove author attribution. Maintain article's POV - no meta-references. You can decide the most appropriate length based on the article.summary can be longer than the article if needed.
"title": "Provide an Appropriate Title Based on the Article's Content.",
"changes_made": [
"List significant changes made in the summary",
"Include both removals and additions",
"Note bias adjustments"
],
"key_words": [
"3-10 relevant terms to help identify related articles",
"Focus on major themes and topics"
],
"keywords_update": {
"keyword-to-add-or-update": "new summary or updated to replace the previous"
}
}
KEYWORDS UPDATE INSTRUCTIONS:
- We want to save new information from beyond your knowledge cutoff of Mar 2024.
- Information can come from the provided article or Wikipedia.
- Pick up to 3 keywords of highest importance to update with new information.
- If a keyword lacks a summary, write one from scratch.
- For each keyword, list one line per new fact (up to 50 sentences per keyword).
- Each fact must:
1. Be one or two sentences long.
2. End with 1-3 references in brackets, e.g. [apnews], [nytimes,wikipedia].
3. Immediately after the reference(s), append a hyphen and the date of the event or when the fact was reported, in ISO format:
`Statement. [source] - [YYYY-MM-DD]`
- If you update an existing keyword's source (e.g. [foxnews] → [apnews]), ensure the replacement is supported by an article.
- Ensure each keyword is specific enough that its new facts warrant inclusion.
<example>
ARTICLE TOPIC
Raiding of 100+ immigrants allegedly illegal alients and alleged members from the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, MS-13, and the Hells Angels for deportation. Authorities also found drugs at the underground nightclub at a strip mall in Colorado Springs. President Donald Trump praised the raid, saying on TruthSocial it had targeted some of the worst people in the US, whom he alleged judges are reluctant to deport.
keywords worth updating:
tren-de-aragua (I am sure this gang has a big list of information, but this deportation will be worth a mention)
tren-de-aragua+deportation (a more specific keyword that can take more detail about this incident)
trump+illegal_deportation (add this to the list of illegal deportations conducted by trump administration)
colorado_springs (this is a unique event for this town. an update here will add some trivia.)
trump+immigration (a key fact worth mentioning about how trump is implementation his immigration policies)
keywords to not update:
trump (too broad. not one of top 50 facts related to trump.)
illegal_deportation (depending upon existing content, may be too crowded for this incident to be added)
colorado (too broad, unlikely to fit this event in top 50)
drug_raids (too broad, unlikely to fit this event in top 50)
</example>
<existing_keywords_summaries>
white-house-power-dynamics : Stephen Miller is considered second only to Chief of Staff Susie Wiles in Trump's inner circle, fueling speculation about whether he could succeed her if she steps down. [CNN] - 2025-01-27. The Trump-Musk feud has created complications for Miller's position since his wife Katie works for Musk, though some officials maintain Trump's trust in Stephen remains unaffected. [CNN] - 2025-01-27. Musk unfollowed Stephen Miller on X during the height of the Trump-Musk conflict, though both Millers continued following Musk on the platform. [CNN] - 2025-01-27.
biden+health-concerns : In May 2025, Biden was diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer with a Gleason score of 9, representing the most aggressive form of the disease. [cnn] - 2025-05-12. The diagnosis came after Biden experienced increasing urinary symptoms and was found to have a prostate nodule. [cnn] - 2025-05-12. Medical experts note that while the condition is serious and not curable, modern treatments have significantly improved outcomes for patients with hormone-sensitive metastatic prostate cancer. [cnn] - 2025-05-12.
biden-2024-dropout : Joe Biden withdrew from the 2024 presidential race on July 21, 2024, due to concerns about his age and health, following a poor debate performance. [wikipedia] - 2024-07-21
democratic-party+betrayal : Karine Jean-Pierre's book suggests a perceived betrayal by the Democratic Party led to Biden's decision to withdraw from the 2024 race. [apnews] - 2024-10-01
trump+tariffs : Recent surveys indicate that President Trump's tariff policies have led to increased economic uncertainty and inflation, affecting businesses and consumers across the United States. [CNN] - 2023-10-04
trump+lgbtq-rollback : The Trump administration has implemented policies reversing LGBTQ rights, including renaming the USNS Harvey Milk and banning transgender individuals from military service. [cnn] - 2023-06-01. In June 2025, the administration ended funding for The Trevor Project's LGBTQ+ youth suicide prevention hotline, citing opposition to 'radical gender ideology.' [reuters] - 2025-06-18. The administration has signed multiple executive orders restricting transgender rights and dismantling diversity, equity and inclusion practices since January 2025. [reuters] - 2025-06-18.
military+dei-elimination : The Trump administration's focus on reviving the 'warrior ethos' includes reducing diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in the military, exemplified by the renaming of the USNS Harvey Milk. [cnn] - 2023-06-01
biden+prostate-cancer : Biden was diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer with a Gleason score of 9 that has metastasized to his bones in May 2025. [cnn] - 2025-05-12. The cancer appears to be hormone-sensitive, which allows for effective management options. [cnn] - 2025-05-12. Biden and his family are reviewing treatment options with his physicians following the diagnosis. [cnn] - 2025-05-12.
trump-military-renaming : The Trump administration ordered the renaming of the USNS Harvey Milk and potentially other John Lewis-class ships named after civil rights leaders. [abcnews] - 2025-06-04. Pentagon officials stated the renamings will reflect the Commander-in-Chief's priorities and the warrior ethos. [abcnews] - 2025-06-04. Other ships in the class include vessels named after Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sojourner Truth, and Thurgood Marshall. [abcnews] - 2025-06-04.
federal-judiciary+trump : Federal courts issued orders requiring the Trump administration to facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia from El Salvador after his wrongful deportation in March 2025. [CNN] - 2025-06-06
biden+juneteenth :
trump+juneteenth-criticism :
biden+public-appearances :
trump+dei-elimination :
juneteenth-federal-holiday :
biden+juneteenth :
trump+juneteenth-criticism :
biden+public-appearances :
trump+dei-elimination :
juneteenth-federal-holiday :
</existing_keywords_summaries>
<wikipedia_requested_titles>
TITLE Joe Biden
Joseph Robinette Biden Jr.. ( (listen) BY-dən; born November 20, 1942) is an American politician who served as the 46th president of the United States from 2021 to 2025. Before becoming president, he was the 47th vice president under Barack Obama from 2009 to 2017. He was a U.S. senator from Delaware from 1973 to 2009. Biden was a member of the Senate longer than any other president or vice president.
He tried to become the Democratic candidate for president in 1988 and 2008 but dropped out of the race. During the 2008 election, then-Senator Barack Obama picked him to be his running mate. Biden is a Roman Catholic. Biden has received several awards. He has five honorary doctorates, including one from his Alma mater and one from where he has taught law. He has also earned the "Best of Congress Award", an award from the Pakistani government, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom with distinction.
After finishing his second term as vice president, Biden began working at the University of Pennsylvania. In April 2019, Biden launched his presidential campaign for the 2020 election. On April 8, 2020, Biden became the likely nominee for the Democratic nomination after Bernie Sanders ended his campaign. On November 7, he defeated then-President Donald Trump and became the president-elect of the United States. He became president on January 20, 2021. He is the oldest person to serve as president and the first from the state of Delaware. He is also the second Catholic to hold the office, after John F. Kennedy.
As president, Biden signed the American Rescue Plan Act in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and recession. He signed bipartisan bills on infrastructure as well. Biden appointed Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court. He worked with congressional Republicans to fix the 2023 debt-ceiling crisis by creating a deal to raise the debt ceiling. He also made America rejoin the Paris Agreement. He pulled out U.S. troops from Afghanistan that ended the war in Afghanistan, leading to the collapse of the Afghan government and the Taliban taking control. He responded to the Russian invasion of Ukraine by putting sanctions on Russia and giving civilian and military aid to Ukraine. During the Israel–Hamas war, Biden called the actions of Hamas terrorism, announced military support for Israel and sent a small amount of humanitarian help to the Gaza Strip.
In April 2023, Biden announced his candidacy for the Democratic nomination in the 2024 presidential election, and was the presumptive nominee. After performing badly in a June 2024 debate with Trump, age and health concerns increased. These concerns and low popularity lead Biden to end his candidacy and endorse Harris to replace him.
== Early life ==
Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was born on November 20, 1942 at St. Mary's Keller Memorial Hospital in Scranton, Pennsylvania. His family were Irish Catholics. His father, Joe Sr., was a businessman. When he was young, his family moved to Wilmington, Delaware. He also began to stutter at an early age. In high school, Biden played football and baseball, but he was not a very good student. Biden attended college at the University of Delaware and Syracuse University. He did not have to fight in the Vietnam War because he was going to college and had asthma as a child.
== U.S. Senate ==
For many years, Biden was a U.S. senator from Delaware. Biden was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1972 when he was 29 years old. His election was somewhat of a surprise. The other candidate, J. Caleb Boggs, had more experience and more money to spend on his campaign. He is one of the youngest people to become a U.S. Senator, because he was only two months older than the minimum age, 30, required to be one. (While he was 29 during the election, he turned 30 before he became a senator.)
Biden was re-elected to the Senate six times. He became a prominent defender of Israel as a senator, and said that if there was no country like Israel the U.S. would have to make one. Later in his time in the Senate, Biden served as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Senate Judiciary Committee. The Foreign Relations committee deals with American issues in other countries. When Biden was chair, the committee dealt with the 1991 Gulf War, the 2003 War in Iraq, and several treaties. The Judiciary Committee dealt with the choice of Clarence Thomas, Robert Bork, and others for the Supreme Court (SCOTUS). Biden thought that Thomas and Bork should not be on the Court. Though U.S. senators work in Washington, DC, Biden took the train home to Delaware every night.
Before becoming vice president, Biden was ranked one of the least wealthy members of the Senate, which he said was because he was young when elected to the Senate. In November 2009, Biden's net worth was $27,012.
== Presidential campaigns ==
Biden ran for president four times, in 1988, 2008, 2020 and 2024. The first time he was viewed as a good choice early on, but quit after it was discovered he gave a speech that was copied from Neil Kinnock, a British politician.
Biden tried again to get the Democratic Party's nomination in the 2008 presidential election. He ran mostly on foreign issues, especially getting U.S. troops out of Iraq. Many thought of him as a good choice for Secretary of State. He stopped his campaign on January 3, 2008 after he did not get many votes in the Iowa caucus. However, he later became Barack Obama's pick for vice president due to what he knew about Iraq and because the working class liked him.
When Biden was running for president, he criticized Obama, talking about his lack of experience, but later he supported Obama to become president. His opponent as vice president was Sarah Palin, who had less experience but was seen as more interesting by the media. Before the election, there were debates between the different candidates running for president or vice president. In the debate between Biden and Palin, many people believed that he knew more about running America than Palin did.
On November 4, 2008, Obama and Biden defeated the McCain-Palin ticket in the general election, making him vice president-elect. They won the election by 365 electoral votes and 69 million votes, compared to incumbent McCain, who received 173 electoral votes and 59 million votes.
== Vice presidency (2009–2017) ==
Biden became the 47th vice president on January 20, 2009. He was vice president until January 20, 2017. He is the first person from Delaware and first Roman Catholic to be vice president. Biden said that his vice-presidency would not be like any other. He said he would do things differently from Dick Cheney, who had been vice president before him.
Biden's main role was as an advisor to Obama on issues of foreign policy and the economy. Obama asked for Biden's input on most major decisions, such as who to put in the Cabinet and how to fight the War in Afghanistan. Obama put Biden in charge of groups to deal with the problems of the working class, and to watch the money in his stimulus bill. Biden also traveled to the Middle East several times for Obama and the U.S. while Vice President. In 2011, Biden led talks on the budget and the debt. On November 6, 2012, Biden was re-elected for a second term as vice president along with President Barack Obama.
In August 2015, Biden said that he was thinking of running for president again in the 2016 U.S. election. Biden formed a PAC for his possible run. On October 21, speaking from a podium in the Rose Garden with his wife and President Obama by his side, Biden said he would not run for president in 2016.
Biden never had to break a tie vote in the United States Senate, making him the longest-serving vice president not to do this.
== Post-vice presidency (2017–2021) ==
=== 2020 presidential election ===
During a tour of the U.S. Senate with reporters before leaving office on December 5, 2016, Biden said that a presidential bid was possible in the 2020 presidential election, after leaving office as vice president. While on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on December 7, he stated "never say never" about running for president in 2020, while also saying he did not expect he would run for office again. On January 13, 2017, exactly one week before Donald Trump took office, he said he would not run. However, four days later, on January 17, he took the statement back, saying "I'll run if I can walk."
Biden was mentioned by many news outlets as a potential candidate for the 2020 Democratic nomination. In March 2019, he said he may run.
He formally launched his campaign on April 25, 2019.
In April 2020, Biden became the only candidate in the primary making him the presumptive nominee for the nomination. At first, he lost the first three primary contests to Senator Bernie Sanders. After winning the South Carolina primary, he gained traction and won most of the Super Tuesday races.
Biden promised when elected he would protect Roe v. Wade decision, create a public option for health insurance, decriminalization of recreational cannabis, pass the Equality Act, create free community college, and a $1.7 trillion climate plan supporting the Green New Deal. He supports regulation instead of a complete ban on fracking.
In early 2020, Biden promised he would pick a woman as his running mate. He also promised that his first Supreme Court appointment would be a black woman. In August 2020, he picked California U.S. Senator Kamala Harris as his running mate.
On November 7, 2020, Biden defeated Trump in the general election, making him president-elect. He won the election by 306 electoral votes and 81 million votes, compared to incumbent Trump who received 232 electoral votes and 74 million votes.
== Presidency (2021–2025) ==
=== Transition ===
Biden was elected the 46th president of the United States in November 2020, defeating the incumbent Donald Trump, the first president to lose re-election since George H. W. Bush in 1992.
He became the second non-incumbent vice president to be elected president, and the first Democrat to do so. He became the oldest president at the time of inauguration. He is the first president from Delaware.
At first, General Services Administrator Emily W. Murphy did not say Biden had won the 2020 election. On November 23, however, she recognized Biden as the winner of the 2020 election and authorized the start of a transition process to the Biden administration.
=== First 100 days ===
Biden was inaugurated shortly before noon on January 20, 2021 as the 46th president of the United States. At 78, he was the oldest person to become president. He is the second Catholic president (after John F. Kennedy) and the first president whose home state is Delaware. Biden is the first president since George H.W. Bush to hold both offices as president and vice president and the first president since Richard Nixon to hold them non-consecutively.
In his first two days as president, Biden signed 17 executive orders, more than most recent presidents did in their first 100 days. Biden signed more executive orders than any other president since Franklin D. Roosevelt had in their first month in office. His first actions were rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement, ending the state of national emergency at the border with Mexico, rejoining the World Health Organization, a 100-day mandatory face mask requirements on federal property and acts to stop hunger in the United States. His presidency has been focused around his Build Back Better Plan agenda.
On February 4, 2021, he announced that the United States will stop giving weapons to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates for use in the Yemeni Civil War.
On March 11, 2021, the first anniversary of COVID-19 being declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization, Biden signed into law the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, a $1.9 trillion economic stimulus relief package. The package included direct payments to most Americans, an extension of increased unemployment benefits, funds for vaccine distribution and school reopenings, support for small businesses and state and local governments, and expansions of health insurance subsidies and the child tax credit. Biden tried to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, but removed it from the stimulus package after criticism from both parties.
In March 2021, when there was an increase in migrants coming to the United States from Mexico, Biden told migrants: "Don't come over." He said that the U.S. was arranging a plan for migrants to "apply for asylum in place", without leaving their original locations. In the meantime, migrant adults "are being sent back", Biden said, in reference to the continuation of the Trump administration's Title 42 policy for quick deportations. Biden earlier announced that his administration would not deport unaccompanied migrant children and told the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help take care of children separated at the border.
On March 23, 2021, all of his cabinet members were confirmed by the United States Senate. Biden is the first president since Ronald Reagan in 1981 to have all of his original Cabinet secretary nominees confirmed to their posts. Two days later, Biden announced that he would run for re-election in the 2024 election.
=== Rest of 2021 ===
On April 22–23, Biden held an international climate summit at which he announced that the US would cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 50%–52% by 2030 compared to 2005 levels.
On April 28, 2021, Biden addressed the United States Congress in his State of the Union Address. Presiding over this joint session was the House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and the Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris as President of the Senate ― the first time two women preside over an address to Congress.
On June 17, Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act, which officially declared Juneteenth a federal holiday. Juneteenth is the first new federal holiday since Martin Luther King Jr. Day was declared a holiday in 1986.
In July 2021, when not many people were getting their COVID-19 vaccine and the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant, Biden said that the country has "a pandemic for those who haven’t gotten the vaccination". He also criticized the increase of COVID-19 misinformation on social media, saying it was "killing people".
By early July 2021, most of the American troops in Afghanistan were leaving or had left. On August 15, during an offensive by the Taliban, the Afghan government collapsed. Biden reacted by ordering 6,000 American troops to help the evacuation of American personnel and Afghan allies. He has been criticized for the way he handled the withdrawal. He defended his decision to withdraw, saying that Americans should not be "dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves", since the "Afghan military collapsed [against the Taliban], sometimes without trying to fight".
In August 2021, the Biden administration pushed for an infrastructure bill that can reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of the United States by 45% by 2030. He would also support lowering taxes for people who invest in renewable energy and electric vehicles and would add a fee on methane emissions. The Senate passed a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, while the House, also in a bipartisan manner, approved that bill in early November 2021, covering infrastructure related to transport, utilities, and broadband. Biden signed the bill into law in mid-November 2021.
=== 2022 ===
In the start of 2022, Biden's approval ratings were low. He started speaking more in public. Early in the year, Biden supported ending the U.S. Senate filibuster rule to pass a voting rights act.
In January, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer said he would retire from the Supreme Court. Breyer's retirement gave Biden his first chance to nominate a justice to the Supreme Court. Biden had promised to nominate the court's first black female justice. On February 25, Biden nominated D.C. Appeals Court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to replace Breyer. She was confirmed on April 7.
On February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In response, Biden announced economic sanctions on Russia and Putin.
During 2022, gasoline prices and other prices rose. Some people blamed Biden's American Rescue Plan for this inflation. Opponents of Biden used "I Did That!" stickers, showed Biden pointing to that phrase, to criticize Biden for high gas prices. In May 2022, there was a nationwide shortage of infant formula.
Biden tested positive for COVID-19 on July 21, 2022. Five days later, he left isolation after testing negative. However, on July 30, he tested positive again and went back to isolation.
On August 1, 2022, Biden announced the death of Al-Qaeda Emir Ayman al-Zawahiri in a U.S.-conducted airstrike that he approved.
On September 2, 2022, in a nationally televised Philadelphia speech, Biden said that Americans are in a "battle for the soul of the nation." He called active Trump supporters "semi-fascists," which Republican commentators criticized.
Republicans won a small majority in the U.S. House of Representatives with 222 seats in 2022. Democrats kept control of the U.S. Senate, with 51 seats.
It was the first midterm election since 1934 in which the president's party lost no state legislative chambers. Democrats thanked Biden for their unexpectedly good performance in elections, and he celebrated the results as a strong day for democracy.
=== 2023 ===
On November 2, 2022, while packing files at the Penn Biden Center, Biden's lawyers found classified documents in a "locked closet". These documents were from when he was Vice President. According to the White House, the documents were reported that day to the U.S. National Archives. On December 20, a second set of classified documents was discovered in the garage of Biden's Wilmington, Delaware home. In January 2023, these discoveries were announced publicly. On January 12, Attorney General Merrick Garland created a special counsel to investigate. On January 20, after a 13-hour search by FBI investigators, six more items marked classified were taken from Biden's Wilmington home.
On February 20, 2023, four days before the one-year anniversary of the start of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Biden visited Kyiv and met with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and First Lady Olena Zelenska. While there, Biden promised more military aid to Ukraine and criticized Vladimir Putin. The trip was unannounced and many people were surprised. Biden became the first sitting U.S. President to go to an active war zone not controlled by the American military since 1864. The last time was Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War.
On April 25, 2023, Biden announced his re-election campaign for the 2024 presidential election.
On September 12, 2023, U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced an impeachment inquiry into Biden, alleging corruption and illegal business activities surrounding Hunter Biden.
In October 2023, Biden announced support for Israel in its war against Hamas.
On December 13, 2023, the House of Representatives voted 221–212 to formalize an impeachment inquiry against Biden related to the business dealings of his son, Hunter.
=== 2024 ===
Biden's third State of the Union was his fourth speech to a joint session of Congress. During the speech, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene repeatedly interrupted Biden, particularly during his mentions of the Mexican border crisis.
In mid-June 2024, Biden issued an executive action giving amnesty to unauthorized immigrants married to American citizens. The program includes a way to U.S. residency and citizenship and was planned to initially affect about 500,000 people.
The first presidential debate was held on June 27, 2024, between Biden and Republican nominee Donald Trump. Biden's performance was criticized by many, with commentators saying he often didn’t stay on topic or give good answers. Many newspaper columnists said that Trump won the debate. Polling showed that a majority of the public believed Trump won. After the debate had people questioning his health and concerned about his age, Biden faced calls to drop out from the race, including from fellow Democrats, campaign donors, and newspapers of several major news outlets. Biden said that he would remain a candidate.
Following the attempted assassination of Trump on July 13, 2024, Biden condemned the shooting and, in an Oval Office address the next day, spoke about the "need for to lower the temperature" of political rhetoric.
On July 21, 2024, Biden announced that he would not run for reelection, instead supporting his vice president, Kamala Harris, to run for the 2024 election as president. He wrote that this was "in the best interest of my party and the country". His announcement came 29 days before the beginning of the 2024 Democratic National Convention. A few days later, Harris had secured enough delegates to become the Democratic nominee. This is the first time an eligible incumbent has withdrawn from reelection since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968 and the first to withdraw from an election after winning the primaries.
== Post-presidency (2025–present) ==
Biden's term ended on January 20, 2025, upon Donald Trump's second inauguration. Biden moved back to Wilmington, Delaware after his term ended. He later signed with talent agency CAA to represent him in public engagements, which had previously represented him from 2017 to 2020.
At the end of his presidency, Biden began to focus on raising funds for the Joseph R. Biden Jr. Presidential Library.
In May 2025, Biden's personal office announced that he had been diagnosed with an "aggressive form" of prostate cancer that spread to his bones. His medical team said that treatment options are being reviewed. It was also found that the cancer now spread from his prostate to other tissues in his body.
== Allegations of physical misconduct ==
There have been many photographs of Biden hugging, kissing, and touching women and/or children in what commentators said to be inappropriate. Biden has said that the behavior had got him in trouble in the past.
In March 2019, former Nevada assemblywoman Lucy Flores said that Biden kissed her without consent at a 2014 campaign rally in Las Vegas. Flores wrote that Biden walked up behind her, put his hands on her shoulders, smelled her hair, and kissed the back of her head. In an interview with HuffPost, Flores stated she believed Biden's behavior should force him not to run in 2020. By early April 2019, a total of seven women had made such allegations regarding Biden.
In April 2019, former Biden staffer Tara Reade said that she had felt uncomfortable many times when Biden touched her on her shoulder and neck while working in his Senate office in 1993. In March 2020, Reade said Biden had pushed her against a wall and penetrated her while on Capitol Hill in 1993. Biden denied the allegations.
== Personal life ==
While in college, he married his first wife, Nelia Hunter. They had three children: two sons (Beau and Robert) and a daughter (Naomi). After college, he became a lawyer and served on a County council. In 1972, Biden's family got into a car accident. Nelia and Naomi were killed, and Beau and Robert were hurt very badly. Both survived the accident. Beau was the Attorney general in Delaware until January 2015 and served as a soldier in Iraq. Beau died from brain cancer on May 30, 2015 in Bethesda, Maryland at the age of 46. Biden thought of resigning as vice president because of his son's death.
Biden married his second wife, Jill Jacobs Biden, in 1977. She is a teacher and the former second lady of the United States. In 1981, they had a daughter, Ashley, who is now a social worker. In 1988, Biden suffered from bleeding in his brain and needed brain surgery twice. Because of what he saw in his family and neighborhood, Biden does not drink alcohol.
Biden lives just outside of Wilmington, Delaware and often goes there on the weekends since becoming president. By November 2020, the Bidens were worth $9 million, mainly because of Biden's book sales and speaking fees after his vice presidency.
=== Health ===
In February 1988, Biden had surgery to help heal a brain aneurysm. While recuperating, he had a pulmonary embolism and recovered a few months later. In November 2020, while playing with his two dogs Champ and Major, he suffered a stress fracture in his foot and was hospitalized. In July 2022, it was revealed that Biden had some "non-melanoma skin cancers" removed before he became president. That same month, he was diagnosed with COVID-19.
== Awards and honors ==
Biden has received honorary degrees from the University of Scranton (1976), Saint Joseph's University (1981), Widener University School of Law (2000), Emerson College (2003), his alma mater the University of Delaware (2004), Suffolk University Law School (2005), and his other alma mater Syracuse University (2009).
Biden got the Chancellor Medal from his alma mater, Syracuse University, in 1980. In 2005, he got the George Arents Pioneer Medal—Syracuse's highest alumni award—"for excellence in public affairs."
In 2008, Biden got the Best of Congress Award, for "improving the American quality of life through family-friendly work policies," from Working Mother magazine. Also in 2008, Biden shared with fellow Senator Richard Lugar the Hilal-i-Pakistan award from the Government of Pakistan, "in recognition of their consistent support for Pakistan." In 2009, Biden got The Golden Medal of Freedom award from Kosovo, that region's highest award, for his vocal support for their independence in the late 1990s.
Biden is an member of the Delaware Volunteer Firemen's Association Hall of Fame.
In 2017, during his final days as president, Barack Obama awarded Biden the Presidential Medal of Freedom with distinction.
In 2020, Biden and his Vice President Kamala Harris were named Time Person of the Year.
== Related pages ==
President of the United States
== Notes ==
== References ==
== Other websites ==
White House official biography Archived July 18, 2013, at the Wayback Machine
Joe Biden at the Open Directory Project
Senate campaign website (archived)
Biography at WhoRunsGov.com at The Washington Post
Biography at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
Voting record maintained by The Washington Post
Congressional profile at GovTrack.us
Issue positions and quotes at On The Issues
Financial information at OpenSecrets.org
Staff salaries, trips and personal finance at LegiStorm.com
Campaign finance reports and data at the Federal Election Commission
Appearances on C-SPAN programs
Collected news and commentary at The New York Times
Works by or about Joe Biden in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
Joe Biden on IMDb
TITLE Second presidency of Donald Trump
The second presidency of Donald Trump as the 47th president of the United States began with his second inauguration on January 20, 2025. Trump, who previously served as the 45th president from 2017 to 2021, took office following his victory over Democratic vice president Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election.
On his first day in office, Trump pardoned about 1,500 people found guilty of offenses in the January 6, 2021 Capitol attack. At the beginning of his term, he signed many executive orders, some of which are being challenged in court. He took a firm stance against illegal immigration and tried to send people to prisons in other countries. He signed the Laken Riley Act as the first law of his term. Trump established the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to cut government spending. DOGE has fired many government workers.
Trump, like in his first term, withdrew the United States from the World Health Organization and the Paris Climate Agreement. He started a trade war with Canada and Mexico and continued the ongoing trade war with China. His high tariffs lead to a brief stock market crash. The Trump administration has struggled in dealing with Ukraine and Russia during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Trump has said that he wants to take over Canada, Greenland, the Gaza Strip, and the Panama Canal.
Many of Trump's actions are said to have broken laws and the U.S. Constitution. For example, Trump signed an order to end birthright citizenship, which is in the Constitution. This action and many others have been challenged and blocked by courts.
Trump is the first criminal and felon to become president. He is also the oldest person to become president at 78 years and 220 days. He is the second president in U.S. history to serve nonconsecutive (not back-to-back) terms, after Grover Cleveland.
== Background ==
=== 2024 election ===
On November 6, 2024, Trump won the 2024 U.S. presidential election. He beat incumbent Vice President Kamala Harris. He is the second president to serve two nonconsecutive terms after Grover Cleveland. Trump is also the oldest person to become president. Trump also became the first criminal to become president due to his conviction on May 30, 2024.
=== Transition Period ===
Trump has used the time before he becomes president to prepare. He has chosen Susan Wiles to be his White House Chief of Staff. Wiles is the leader of Trump's 2024 campaign. Trump has also chosen Stephen Miller to be White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy. Miller served in Trump's first administration as a speechwriter.
For his cabinet, Trump has made several choices. He has notably nominated Marco Rubio to be Secretary of State and Matt Gaetz to be Attorney General. Trump has nominated over half of his cabinet secretaries.
== Administration ==
=== Cabinet ===
Trump's cabinet choices were described by news media as valuing personal loyalty over relevant experience, and for having a range of conflicting ideologies and "eclectic personalities". It was also described as the wealthiest administration in modern history, with over 13 billionaires chosen to take government posts. Trump officials and Elon Musk threatened to fund primary challengers in upcoming elections against Republican Senators who did not vote for Trump's nominees.
== Notes ==
== References ==
TITLE Age and health concerns about Joe Biden
Joe Biden was 78 years and 2 months old when he became president, at the time the oldest president ever at inauguration (this record was later broken by Donald Trump in 2025), and was the first president of the United States to turn 80 while in office.
Former Republican president Donald Trump, voters and several members of the Democratic Party showed concern about his age, including his cognitive health. These issues became more talked about during and after the 2020 United States presidential election. These concerns became a bigger issue after a poor performance by Biden during a debate against Trump in the 2024 presidential election. This led a many commentators and some Democratic lawmakers to pressure Biden to drop out of the 2024 presidential race. After the debate, it was reported that a neurologist specializing in Parkinson's disease had visited the White House eight times in the previous eight months.
Biden later ended his candidacy while saying that he would continue serving as president until the end of his term.
In 2018, when Biden was thinking running for president, he talked with friends, aides, and longtime supporters and asked if he was too old to run for the presidency. By 2019, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Politico, CNN, The Atlantic, the Associated Press, and Slate all published articles on Biden's age and if he was healthy enough to run for office. That year, many of the people running against him for the Democratic nomination used his age against Biden, who was 76 at the time.
In January 2024, a doctor gave Biden a close to 75% chance of living through a second term based on publicly available information about his health. This is about a 10% better survival chance when compared to other men his age.
In a February 2024 poll, Biden's age and health were major issues for 86% of voters generally, up from 76% earlier in 2020. According to another 2024 poll, most of those who voted for Biden in 2020 say they believe he is too old to be a good president.
After finishing the investigation into Biden's handling of classified documents, a special counsel said that Biden would be able to show himself to a jury as an "elderly man with poor memory" and wrote that Biden had some memory problems. While criticizing the counsel's statement during the conference, Biden accidentally called the Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi as President of Mexico.
On July 17, 2024, Biden tested positive for COVID-19. He had mild symptoms, including a cough and a runny nose. Pictures of him looking sick while leaving from Air Force One on the way to isolation in Delaware had people expressing more concern about Biden's health.
== References ==
TITLE Juneteenth
Juneteenth (full name Juneteenth National Independence Day, also known as Freedom Day, Jubilee Day, and Liberation Day) is a holiday in the United States on June 19. It is a memory of June 19, 1865, when the slaves in Texas got their freedom and commemorates the end of slavery in the United States. The name Juneteenth is a short form of June nineteenth. It became a recognized federal holiday in June 2021 when President Joe Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act into law.
The first celebration of Juneteenth was in 1866. Over the years, it was sometimes more popular, and sometimes less popular. Texas was the first state to make it an official holiday in 1979. After George Floyd was killed in 2020, many people wanted to show their support for black rights.
== Pictures ==
== Related pages ==
Opal Lee
== Sources ==
TITLE Donald Trump
Donald John Trump (June 14, 1946) is an American businessman, media personality, and politician who is the 47th president of the United States since 2025. Before, he served as the 45th president from 2017 to 2021. He is a member of the Republican Party. Trump was also the chairman of The Trump Organization from 1971 to 2017.
Trump is a billionaire. Much of his money was made in real estate in New York City, Las Vegas, and Atlantic City. From 2004 to 2015, Trump was the host of his own reality television show The Apprentice.
Trump became the Republican Party nominee for president in 2016. He won that year's presidential election against Democrat Hillary Clinton. He was inaugurated as the 45th president in 2017. Trump lost a second term to Joe Biden in the 2020 election. He did not agree with the result and said he won the election by a "big amount". He tried but failed to change the election results.
In 2022, Trump announced another presidential campaign for the 2024 presidential election, where he defeated Vice President Kamala Harris to be elected the 47th president.
In 2023, Trump became the first former U.S. president to face criminal charges. In 2024, he became the first former U.S. president convicted of a felony. He is the first felon to serve as president.
== Early life ==
Donald John Trump was born at Jamaica Hospital Medical Center in Queens, New York City. He is the son of Fred Trump and his wife Mary Anne (née MacLeod). They married in 1936. His mother was born on the Isle of Lewis, off the west coast of Scotland. Donald was one of five children. Donald's oldest brother, Fred Jr., died in 1981 at the age of 43, due to an alcohol addiction. Trump's sister, Maryanne, is a judge in New York. Trump's father's parents were German immigrants.
His grandfather, Frederick Trump, immigrated to the United States in 1885. He became a naturalized American citizen in 1892. Frederick married Elisabeth Christ (October 10, 1880 – June 6, 1966) at Kallstadt, State of Bavaria, Germany, on August 26, 1902. They had three children. He studied at Fordham University until transferring to the University of Pennsylvania.
Trump was not drafted during the Vietnam War. This was due to four college deferments and one medical deferment. In an interview with The New York Times, he said his medical deferment was because of heel spurs.
== Career ==
=== Hotel developments ===
Trump began his career at his father's real estate company, Elizabeth Trump & Son. He later renamed the company The Trump Organization, which has its headquarters at 40 Wall Street. The company focused on middle-class rental housing in Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island. One of Trump's first projects, while he was still in college, was the revitalization of the foreclosed Swifton Village apartment complex in Cincinnati, Ohio. His father had purchased it for $5.7 million in 1962. Trump became closely involved in the project. With a $500,000 investment, he turned the 1200-unit complex with a 66 percent vacancy rate to 100 percent occupancy within two years. In 1972, the Trump Organization sold Swifton Village for $6 million.
Trump has developed many real estate projects. They include Trump International Hotel and Tower in Honolulu, Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago, Trump International Hotel and Tower in Toronto, and Trump Tower in Tampa. In Fort Lauderdale, Florida, one Trump construction project was put on hold in favor of another (Trump International Hotel and Tower in Fort Lauderdale). Trump Towers in Atlanta was being developed in the housing market, however the project fell after the 2008 recession and instead buildings that didn't belong to Trump were built.
In its October 7, 2007 Forbes 400 issue, "Acreage Aces", Forbes valued Trump's wealth at $3 billion. Since 2011, his net worth has been estimated from $2 billion to $7 billion. Forbes estimated his net worth at $3.1 billion in 2019.
=== Beauty pageants ===
From 1996 until 2015, Trump owned part or all of the Miss Universe, Miss USA, and Miss Teen USA beauty pageants.
=== Wrestling support ===
Trump is a WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) fan, and a friend of WWE owner Vince McMahon. In 1988–89 he hosted WrestleMania IV and V at Boardwalk Hall (dubbed "Trump Plaza" for storyline purposes) and has been an active participant in several of the shows. Trump was inducted into the celebrity wing of the WWE Hall of Fame in 2013 at Madison Square Garden for his contributions to the promotion. He made his sixth WrestleMania appearance the next night.
=== The Apprentice ===
In 2003, Trump became the executive producer and host of the NBC reality show The Apprentice, in which a group of competitors battled for a high-level management job in one of Trump's commercial enterprises. In 2004, Trump filed a trademark application for the catchphrase "You're fired!"
For the first year of the show, Trump earned $50,000 per episode (roughly $700,000 for the first season), but following the show's initial success, he was paid $1 million per episode. In a July 2015 press release, Trump's campaign manager said that NBCUniversal had paid him $213,606,575 for his 14 seasons hosting the show.
On February 16, 2015, NBC announced that they would be renewing The Apprentice for a 15th season. On February 27, Trump stated that he was "not ready" to sign on for another season because of the possibility of a presidential run. On June 29, after a widespread negative reaction stemming from Trump's campaign announcement speech, NBC released a statement saying, "Due to the recent derogatory statements by Donald Trump regarding immigrants, NBCUniversal is ending its business relationship with Mr. Trump." Trump was replaced by former Governor of California and actor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
=== Political activity before 2015 ===
Trump switched between political parties a number of times. He registered as a Republican in 1987, a member of the Independence Party in 1999, a Democrat in 2001, a Republican in 2009, with no political party in 2011, and a Republican in 2012.
In 2011, Trump said that President Barack Obama was born in Kenya; Obama was actually born in Hawaii. If Obama had been born in Kenya, he would not have been allowed to run for president. Trump repeatedly said that Obama was lying about where he was born, an idea called "Birtherism". Even after Obama shared his birth certificate with the public, Trump suggested that it could be fake.
== 2016 presidential campaign ==
=== Announcement ===
Trump made a formal announcement of his candidacy for president of the United States for the 2016 elections on June 16, 2015. He made the announcement at 11am EST from his headquarters in Trump Tower in New York City. Trump launched his campaign saying, "We are going to make our Country Great Again" with a commitment to become the "greatest jobs president." Trump's official campaign slogan was "Make America Great Again." That was first used by Alexander Wiley, but Donald Trump trademarked it.
On May 4, 2016, Trump became the presumptive nominee after his only challengers, Texas United States senator Ted Cruz and Governor of Ohio John Kasich, dropped out.
=== Border security and illegal immigration remarks ===
During his announcement speech he stated in part, "When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people." On July 6, 2015, Trump issued a written statement to clarify his position on illegal immigration, which drew a reaction from critics.
=== Ideology ===
Trump has described his political leanings and positions in many ways over time. Politico has called his positions as "eclectic, improvisational and often contradictory". He has listed several different party affiliations over the years, and has also run as a Reform Party candidate. The positions that he has revised or reversed include stances on progressive taxation, abortion, and government involvement in health care.
He has supported Christian groups in the U.S., claiming that he will reverse unfavorable tax treatments preventing them from expressing themselves in the political arena and promising to revive a more widespread use of the phrase "Merry Christmas" instead of "Happy Holidays" in department stores. Other issues he highlighted include taking care of military veterans, making the military "strong", aggressive bombing of the Mideast terrorist group ISIS, surveillance of certain mosques in the U.S., and making trade agreements more favorable to American workers.
=== Primaries ===
Trump entered a large field of candidates consisting of 16 other Republican candidates campaigning for the nomination, the largest presidential field in American history. By early 2016, the race had mostly centered on Donald Trump and U.S. Senator Ted Cruz. On Super Tuesday, Trump won the majority of the delegates and remained the front-runner throughout the primaries.
Finishing in June 2016 with nearly 14 million votes, Trump broke the all-time record for winning the most primary votes in the history of the Republican Party.
=== General campaign and election ===
After becoming the presumptive Republican nominee, Trump's focus shifted to the general election, urging remaining primary voters to "save [their] vote for the general election." Trump began targeting Hillary Clinton, who became the presumptive Democratic nominee on June 6, 2016 after beating Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primaries, and continued to campaign across the country. Clinton had established a significant lead in national polls over Trump throughout most of 2016. In early July, Clinton's lead narrowed in national polling averages following the FBI's conclusion of its investigation into her ongoing email controversy.
On September 26, 2016, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton faced off in the first presidential debate at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York. Lester Holt, an anchor with NBC News, was the moderator. This was the most watched presidential debate in United States history.
On November 8, 2016, Trump won the presidency with 306 electoral votes to Clinton's 232 votes, even though Trump won a smaller part of the popular vote than Clinton. He is the fourth person to become president without winning the popular vote. The final popular vote difference between Clinton and Trump is that Clinton finished ahead by 2.86 million or 2.1 percentage points, 48.04% to 45.95%, with neither candidate reaching a majority. Trump's victory was considered a big political upset, as nearly all national polls at the time showed Hillary Clinton with a modest lead over Trump, and state polls showed her with a modest lead to win the Electoral College. In the early hours of November 9, 2016, Trump received a phone call in which Clinton conceded the presidency to him. Trump then delivered his victory speech before hundreds of supporters in the Hilton Hotel in New York City.
Trump's presidential transition team was led by Chris Christie until November 11, 2016, when Vice President-elect Mike Pence took over.
== First presidency, 2017–2021 ==
=== Inauguration ===
On January 20, 2017, Trump was sworn in by Chief Justice John G. Roberts as President of the United States at his inauguration ceremony at the United States Capitol Building. Within his first hour as president, he signed several executive orders, including an order to minimize "the economic burden" of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.
On the Saturday following Trump's inauguration there were massive demonstrations protesting Trump in the United States and worldwide, including the 2017 Women's March.
=== Cabinet and staff ===
The following people were part of Donald Trump's cabinet. They are the most senior officers of the executive branch.
Secretary of State: Rex Tillerson (2017-2018), Mike Pompeo (2018-2021)
Secretary of the Treasury: Steven Mnuchin
Secretary of Defense: James Mattis (2017-2019), Mark Esper (2019-2021)
Attorney General: Jeff Sessions (2017-2018), William Barr (2019-2021)
Secretary of the Interior: Ryan Zinke (2017-2019), David Bernhardt (2019-2021)
Secretary of Agriculture: Sonny Perdue
Secretary of Commerce: Wilbur Ross
Secretary of Labor: Alexander Acosta (2017-2019), Eugene Scalia (2019-2021)
Secretary of Health and Human Services: Tom Price (2017), Alex Azar (2018-2021)
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development: Ben Carson
Secretary of Transportation: Elaine Chao
Secretary of Energy: Rick Perry (2017-2019), Dan Brouillette (2019-2021)
Secretary of Education: Betsy DeVos
Secretary of Veterans' Affairs: David Shulkin (2017-2018), Robert Wilkie (2018-2021)
Secretary of Homeland Security: John F. Kelly (2017), Kirstjen Nielsen (2017-2019)
The following people held other important jobs in the executive branch. They are also selected by the president.
White House Chief of Staff: Reince Priebus (2017), John F. Kelly (2017-2019), Mark Meadows (2020-2021)
United States Trade Representative: Robert Lighthizer
Director of National Intelligence: Dan Coats (2017-2019), John Ratcliffe (2020-2021)
Ambassador to the United Nations: Nikki Haley (2017-2019), Kelly Craft (2019-2021)
Director of the Office of Management and Budget: Mick Mulvaney (2017-2020), Russell Vought (2020-2021)
Director of the Central Intelligence Agency: Mike Pompeo (2017-2018), Gina Haspel (2018-2021)
Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency: Scott Pruitt (2017-2018), Andrew R. Wheeler (2019-2021)
Administrator of the Small Business Administration: Linda McMahon (2017-2019), Jovita Carranza (2020-2021)
=== First days ===
On January 23, 2017 Trump signed the executive order withdrawing the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a trade agreement between the United States and eleven Pacific Rim nations—Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam that would have created a "free-trade zone for about 40 percent of the world's economy." Two days later, he ordered the construction of the Mexico border wall. He reopened the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipeline construction projects.
On January 27, an order suspended admission of refugees for 120 days and denied entry to citizens of Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen for 90 days, citing security concerns about terrorism. Later, the administration seemed to reverse a portion of part of the order, effectively exempting visitors with a green card. Several federal judges issued rulings that curtailed parts of the immigration order, stopping the federal government from deporting visitors already affected.
On January 30, 2017, Trump fired Acting Attorney General Sally Yates because of her criticisms of Trump's immigration suspension. On January 31, 2017, Trump nominated Judge Neil Gorsuch to the United States Supreme Court to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia.
=== Allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 election ===
Trump claimed there was no collusion and no obstruction and on May 9, 2017, Trump fired FBI Director James Comey after he reportedly asked for more information and funding for the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. The White House stated that this was not true, and that Trump fired Comey in order to end the investigation. After The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump's National Security Advisor Michael T. Flynn was under investigation by U.S. counterintelligence agents for his communications with Russian officials, Flynn resigned on February 13, 2017. Two days later on February 15, Trump's Secretary of Labor-nominee Andrew Puzder withdrew his nomination due to not having support from Democrats or Republicans to confirm his nomination.
As of March 2018, Trump is reportedly a "subject" of the Robert Mueller investigation into the Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections, meaning his conduct is being looked at, but not a "target" which would indicate the likelihood of criminal charges.
=== Military actions ===
On April 7, 2017, Trump ordered the launch of 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles from the Mediterranean Sea into Syria, aimed at Shayrat Airbase as a reaction to the Khan Shaykhun chemical attack.
=== Healthcare ===
On May 4, 2017, the American Health Care Act of 2017 (AHCA) was passed narrowly to replace and repeal Obamacare by the United States House of Representatives with a vote of 217 to 213, sending the bill to the Senate for voting. This is the second time the AHCA was voted in the House as the first version was not approved by the House in March 2017.
=== Paris Agreement withdrawal ===
On June 1, 2017, he announced that the United States would withdraw from the Paris Climate agreement, making the United States one of only three nations, including Syria and Nicaragua, to do so. On June 16, 2017, President Trump announced that he was "cancelling" the Obama administrations deals with Cuba, while also expressing that a new deal could be negotiated between the Cuban and United States governments. In response to President Biden's rejoining of the Paris Climate agreement, President Trump withdrew once again after being inaugurated on January 20, 2025.
=== First actions to impeach ===
On July 12, 2017, California Representative Brad Sherman formally introduced an article of impeachment, H. Res. 438, accusing the president of obstructing justice regarding the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
=== LGBT rights ===
On July 26, 2017, Trump tweeted that the "United States Government will not accept or allow transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military. Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail." Trump cited the alleged "disruption" and "tremendous medical costs" of having transgender service members.
=== Unite the Right rally ===
Between August 11 and 12, 2017, there was a violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia regarding the removal of Confederate statues. Trump did not speak out against white nationalists explicitly, instead condemning "hatred, bigotry, and violence on many sides" leading people to think he did not take a harsh approach on racism.
=== North Korea ===
In late August, Trump dramatically increased tensions against North Korea, warning that more threats against the U.S. will be responded to with "fire and fury like the world has never seen." North Korean leader Kim Jong-un then threatened to direct the country's next missile test toward Guam. Trump responded in his war-related service that if North Korea took steps to attack Guam, "things [would] happen to them like they never thought possible."
In March 2018, Trump fired United States Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and replaced him with Director of the Central Intelligence Agency Mike Pompeo. Later that month, the White House confirmed that President Trump would accept a meeting invitation from Kim Jong-un. Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that "in the meantime, all sanctions and maximum pressure must remain."
In May 2018, Trump announced on Twitter that he will meet with North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un on June 12, 2018, in Singapore for peace talks.
=== Immigration ===
In September 2017, Trump controversially oversaw the rescinding of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals or "DACA" which removed protections for children immigrants and removed benefits. The decision was announced by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Two injunctions in January and February 2018 allowed renewals of applications and stopped the rolling back of DACA, and in April 2018 a federal judge ordered the acceptance of new applications; this would go into effect in 90 days.
=== Hurricane Maria ===
On October 3, Trump visited Puerto Rico after it was damaged by Hurricane Maria and the next day visited Las Vegas to visit the victims from the Las Vegas shooting.
=== Economy ===
In December 2017, Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, which cut the corporate tax rate to 21%, lowered personal tax brackets, increased child tax credit, doubled the estate tax threshold to $11.2 million, and limited the state and local tax deduction to $10,000.
In February 2018, Trump praised the bill for increasing pay for millions, after announcements of bonuses from many companies. These bonuses have been criticized by the bill's opponents as publicity stunts, and economists have said many of them would have happened anyway due to low unemployment.
=== First impeachment ===
On December 18, 2019, the House of Representatives voted to have Trump impeached for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. On February 5, 2020, the Senate found Trump not guilty of all charges.
=== 2020 re-election bid ===
Trump announced his plans to run for a second term by filing with the FEC within a few hours of assuming the presidency. This transformed his 2016 election committee into a 2020 reelection one. Trump marked the official start of the campaign with a rally in Melbourne, Florida, on February 18, 2017, less than a month after taking office.
By January 2018, Trump's re-election committee had $22 million in hand, and it had raised a total amount exceeding $67 million by December 2018. $23 million was spent in the fourth quarter of 2018, as Trump supported various Republican candidates for the 2018 midterm elections. He made an official re-election campaign launch on June 18, 2019 in Orlando, Florida.
In the 2020 primaries, Trump faced primary challenges from former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld and former U.S. Representatives Joe Walsh. Former South Carolina Governor and former U.S. Representative Mark Sanford also campaigned against him but withdrew from the race.
Trump lost re-election and refused to concede.
=== Defeat and attempts to overturn results ===
On November 7, Trump was defeated by former Vice President Joe Biden after Trump lost Pennsylvania and Nevada. Trump claimed voter fraud through the mail-in voting and threatened to use the United States Supreme Court to stop the states from counting the vote. He had unsuccessfully sued many states trying to make him the winner in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Wisconsin and Georgia.
Many Republican representatives and senators planned to object the United States Congress's formally recognizing Biden's electoral college victory on January 6, 2021. In early January 2021, Trump made a phone call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in an attempt to find "11,780 votes" trying to remove Biden's victory in the state.
=== U.S. Capitol riots ===
On January 6, 2021, while the United States Congress were certifying the election results, rioters stormed the United States Capitol in violent protests across Washington, D.C..
After this, Trump got his Instagram, Facebook and Twitter accounts deleted. On January 8, 2021, Trump was banned from Twitter. The events from the Capitol riots led to new efforts to impeach Trump from the presidency.
=== Second impeachment ===
His actions towards the Capitol riots, led to the U.S. House to impeach Trump for a second time, making him the only President to be impeached twice.
=== Court appointments ===
During his presidency, Trump appointed three justices to the Supreme Court: Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett.
== First post-presidency, 2021–2025 ==
=== Election obstruction case (in federal court) ===
Trump is being prosecuted (as of 2024), "for trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election". About when the case can go to trial: "it almost certainly" cannot happen before the presidential election in November, according to Politico.com; Furthermore, about the chances of the case going to trial: "there’s still [a possibility, or] a narrow window" for that to happen. The case is being handled by a lower court in the federal court system.
Media said that the Supreme Court’s decision in July, says "that former presidents have “absolute” immunity from criminal prosecution over actions that fall within their “core constitutional powers,” and that they are also entitled to immunity for many other “official” acts."
The indictment was [made narrow, or] narrowed by the supreme court's decision (in July), according to media.
Earlier (August 1, 2023) a Washington D.C. federal grand jury indicted Trump on four counts related to his attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election:
Conspiracy to defraud the United States
Conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding
Obstruction of an official proceeding - and trying to obstruct that proceeding
Conspiracy against rights
This Election obstruction case, is sometimes called the "federal election case in Washington D.C." Trump is charged with conspiring to subvert the 2020 election, according to media.".
Trump is charged with conspiring to subvert the 2020 election, according to media".The judge (in the trial) "has scheduled a Sept. 5 hearing to set a course for the case", according to media. Furthermore, during the previous month, a new "indictment [... removed] some specific allegations against Trump".
==== 2024 hearing in U.S. supreme court ====
The supreme court made (July 2024) its decision about its hearing about Trump's claim of immunity from prosecution. The decision says, according to media, that "Trump is immune from prosecution for some [things, or] acts in" at least one of the court cases, the federal election case; Furthermore, "The opinion leaves much [without a decision, or] unresolved; Furthermore, the court has sent "the case back to trial court for further proceedings".
Some of the decisions (by the court), are called an opinion.
Earlier (April 2024), the U.S. supreme court started to hear (ideas or) arguments about immunity against prosecution.
The hearing is sometimes called Trump v. United States (2024).
=== Falsifying business records (trial in state court) ===
In May 2024, Trump was convicted by a jury; The judge (in the case) is supposed to hand down a sentence, on November 26; Earlier, Trump "had a probation interview as part of the sentencing process for his criminal conviction", according to media; Furthermore, he "did the interview [by video link, or] virtually from his Florida home ... with a probation officer at the Manhattan court"; Trump's lawyer was alongside Trump. From the day of getting his sentence, Trump will have 30 days to make an appeal. Trump is not detained (as of the beginning of July). He has not been ordered to (pay or) post bail (in this case.)
A (theory about Law, or a) "legal theory [was used in the court case,] that [made it possible or] enabled prosecutors to [change or] transform 34 misdemeanor counts [...] into a felony case against" Trump, according to Politico.com.
Earlier, Michael Cohen [gave] his testimony; He is "prosecutors’ key witness against" Trump, according to the media. Earlier, Stormy Daniels gave her testimony.
Earlier (April 15, 2024), the trial started.
Earlier (March 30, 2023) the Manhattan district attorney's office confirmed that a New York grand jury had indicted Trump.
Media wrote (September 3, 2024) that the judge is "weighing requests from Trump to toss out the verdict or postpone the sentencing hearing until after Election Day".
=== Classified documents case (in federal court) ===
There is no date for the trial in Florida [as of July 5]; Trump's lawyers have asked the judge, if Trump can get a "chance to argue the immunity issue", in front of the judge "between now and early September, [... and that will delay or pause] all other proceedings in the case by two months". Earlier (March 1, 2024) a hearing was held; The judge "did not [make or] issue any rulings", during the hearing.
Earlier (June 8, 2023) the Justice Department indicted Trump in Miami federal court, for
on purpose, keeping "national defense information under the Espionage Act"; He has been charged with doing those 31 times.
"One count of making false statements, and"
(together with or) "jointly with a personal aide ... conspiracy to obstruct justice, withholding government documents, corruptly concealing records, concealing a document in a federal investigation and scheming to conceal [the efforts of those two people, or] their efforts".
Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges. The judge in the court case tried to find out in court if the U.S. attorney general "is supervising Jack Smith" [as of June 2024]; The judge did not get information about how much contact there is between the special prosecutors and the U.S. attorney general.
On July 15, 2024, the judge at Donald Trump's trial for withholding classified documents after his departure from the White House annuls the entire procedure, considering that the appointment of special prosecutor Jack Smith was illegal.
The case is sometimes called the Government and classified documents case.
==== Background ====
On December 19, 2022, (a committee of the U.S. Congress, or) the United States House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack recommended criminal charges against Trump for obstructing an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and inciting or assisting an insurrection. Earlier (August 8, 2022) FBI agents searched Trump's residence, office, and storage areas at Mar-a-Lago to find government documents and material Trump had taken with him when he left office in violation of the Presidential Records Act. The items taken in the search included 11 sets of classified documents; Four of those had the tag "top secret" and one had the tag "top secret/SCI", the highest level of classification. The search warrant (was signed by, or) was approved by U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland.
=== Other trials and cases ===
==== Georgia election interference case (in state court) ====
The state of Georgia has criminal charges against Trump. A trial "will not come before a jury in 2024", according to media (in June). Furthermore, an appeals court made a decision (early June 2024), to stop pretrial proceedings while a panel (of three) judges thinks about having the lead prosecutor kicked off the case; She is also the district attorney of Fulton county.
Earlier (May 2024), an appeals court made a decision to hear the [ demand] that the district attorney should be kicked off the case against Trump. Three "of the 13 felony counts [that] Trump faces in the case", have been taken away, according to media (on March 13, 2024); Furthermore, "the central charge of a racketeering conspiracy aimed at overturning the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state", is still in place. (A count, is an offence that a defendant gets charged with, in an indictment.)
As of 2024's first quarter, there are allegations that there has been (wrong behavior or) prosecutorial misconduct in that case. The judge ruled (March 15) that the district attorney "can continue" in the case against "Trump and his co-defendants ... if one of her top prosecutors on the case ... is removed from the team"; That prosecutor resigned that day. In regard to the court hearings about taking the district attorney off the case (or disqualifying her): On March 1, there was a court hearing. Earlier (February 27) one of those that witnessed at an earlier hearing, testified again; He had been ordered to testify again. Media said earlier (February 23) that a new affidavit from a private investigator, says that phone records show that the district attorney and Nathan Wade had more than 2,000 phone calls and more than 11,000 text messages during an 11 month period of 2021; The district attorney and Wade have testified that they were not in a romantic relationship during that time; Earlier (February 15) a hearing started; Earlier (February 12), the judge in the case said that he will consider taking district attorney Fani Willis off the case, if there was a financial conflict-of-interest between Willis and the man that she gave a job to (as special prosecutor in the Trump case); That man is Nathan Wade.
Earlier (February 2), Willis said in a document to the court, that she has been in a personal relationship with Wade since 2022.
As of the beginning of March 2024, trial dates for 15 defendants have not been set; Four other defendants have earlier made a guilty plea.
The court case is in Fulton County Superior Court, a state court. Georgia election racketeering prosecution, is one of the names of the case.
==== New York State's fraud case (trial in civil court) ====
In September 2022, the New York State Attorney General filed a fraud case (a civil lawsuit) against Trump, his three oldest children, and the Trump Organization.
In February 2024, the court found Trump (responsible according to law, or) liable. Trump said he would appeal the verdict. In March, the court system said that he "can post a bond of $175 million while he appeals the verdict". On April 1, he posted bond. A U.S. authority has asked [the court] (and "filed notice"), "for evidence that the company, which backed the bond ... can pay up if" necessary.
The case is sometimes called New York civil investigation of The Trump Organization.
==== E. Jean Carroll's lawsuits (trial in civil court) ====
In February 2024, there was a verdict against Trump. The next month, Trump got "a bond that will prevent E. Jean Carroll from immediately enforcing [a c. $83 million, or] an $83.3 million defamation verdict while Trump" is appealing (or asking for another trial, in a higher court).
=== Cases with a final decision (or verdict) ===
==== Case about being on the ballot (March 2024) in Illinois ====
Trump won a case in March 2024; He gets to have his name on the ballot in Illinois. During the previous month, Trump appealed a court ruling in Illinois, that says that the Illinois Board of Elections must remove Trump's name from the ballot of the (March 19) primary election.
=== 2024 presidential campaign ===
On November 15, 2022, Trump announced his candidacy for the 2024 United States presidential election and created a fundraising account.
He has won 995 delegates, as of March 6, 2024. He needs to have 1,215 to win the primary elections (or the Republican presidential caucus).
Trump won in Utah, Alaska, California, Texas, Arkansas, Alabama, Maine, Oklahoma, Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia, Colorado, Massachusetts and Minnesota. Those elections were held on Super Tuesday.
He lost Vermont and American Samoa (March 6, 2024).
Earlier (March 4) he lost Washington D.C.
Earlier Trump won 4 states: Missouri, Michigan, South Carolina, and Iowa. He won a landslide victory in the 2024 Iowa Republican presidential caucuses.
On July 15, 2024, the first day of the Republican National Convention, Trump announced JD Vance as his nominee for vice president.
==== Attempted assassination ====
On July 13, 2024, during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, Thomas Matthew Crooks shot Trump. People at the rally and in videos have shown that Trump was bleeding from his right ear after the shooting. He put his fist into the air for a few seconds. He was quickly brought to a vehicle afterwards. He was brought to the hospital. The shooter and a spectator were killed. Trump and two others were injured.
== Second presidency, 2025–present ==
=== Presidential transition ===
Trump was elected the 47th president of the United States in November 2024. He beat vice president Kamala Harris. He became the second president in U.S. history elected to serve non-consecutive terms after former president Grover Cleveland. The Associated Press and BBC News described it as a comeback for a former president. At age 78 at the time of the 2024 election, Trump is the oldest person to be elected U.S. president, and the first convicted felon to become U.S. president. He was also set to become the first Republican in twenty years to win the popular vote in the U.S. presidential elections. Trump received congratulatory messages from politicians all over the world.
== Personal life ==
Trump has five children by three marriages and has ten grandchildren. Trump is a Presbyterian. As a child, he began going to church at the First Presbyterian Church in Jamaica, Queens.
=== Marriages ===
Trump married his first wife, Czech model Ivana Zelníčková, on April 7, 1977, at the Marble Collegiate Church in Manhattan. They had three children: son Donald Trump Jr. (born December 31, 1977), daughter Ivanka (born October 30, 1981), and son Eric (born January 6, 1984). Ivana became a naturalized United States citizen in 1988. By early 1990, Trump's troubled marriage to Ivana and affair with actress Marla Maples had been reported in the tabloid press. They were divorced in 1992.
Trump married his second wife, actress Marla Maples in 1993. They had one daughter together, Tiffany (born October 13, 1993). The couple were separated in 1997 and later divorced in 1999.
In 1998, Trump began a relationship with Slovene model Melania Knauss, who became his third wife. They were engaged in April 2004 and were married on January 22, 2005, at Bethesda-by-the-Sea Episcopal Church, in Palm Beach, Florida. In 2006, Melania became a naturalized United States citizen. On March 20, 2006, she gave birth to their son, whom they named Barron Trump.
=== Health ===
A medical report by his doctor, Harold Bornstein MD, showed that Trump's blood pressure, liver and thyroid function were in normal range. Trump says that he has never smoked cigarettes or consumed other drugs, including marijuana. He also does not drink alcohol, a decision after his brother's death caused by alcoholism. His BMI, according to his December 2016 visit on Doctor Oz, is just under 30, which is "high".
In February 2019, a new medical test found Trump to be clinically obese. He was later diagnosed with coronary artery disease.
On October 1, 2020, Trump announced on Twitter that he and his wife tested positive for COVID-19. He was briefly hospitalized at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
== References ==
== Other websites ==
Donald J. Trump for President campaign website
Bio of Trump at the Trump Organization
Financial information (federal office) at the Federal Election Commission
Profile at Project Vote Smart
Donald Trump on IMDb
Trump Appearances on C-SPAN
Donald Trump at the Open Directory Project
TITLE Civil Rights Movement
The Civil Rights Movement was a social movement in the United States that tried to gain equal rights for African Americans that European Americans had. The movement is famous for using non-violent protests and civil disobedience (peacefully refusing to follow unfair laws). Activists used strategies like boycotts, sit-ins, and protest marches. Sometimes police or racist white people would attack them, but the activists never fought back.
However, the Civil Rights Movement was made up of many different people and groups. Not everyone believed the same things. For example, the Black Power movement believed black people should demand their civil rights and force white leaders to give them those rights.
The Civil Rights Movement was also made of people of different races and religions. The Movement's leaders and most of its activists were African-American. However, the Movement got political and financial support from labor unions, religious groups, and some white politicians, like Lyndon B. Johnson. Activists of all races came to join African-Americans in marches, sit-ins, and protests.
The Civil Rights Movement was very successful. It helped to get five federal laws and two amendments to the Constitution passed. These officially protected African Americans' rights. It also helped change many white people's attitudes about the way black people were treated and the rights they deserved.
== Before the Civil Rights Movement ==
Before the American Civil War, there were almost four million black slaves in the United States. Only white men with property could vote, and only white people could be United States citizens.
After the Civil War, the United States government passed three Constitutional amendments:
The 13th Amendment (1865) ended slavery
The 14th Amendment (1868) gave African Americans citizenship
The 15th Amendment (1870) gave African American males the right to vote (no women in the U.S. could vote at the time).
=== In the South ===
After the Civil War, the U.S. government tried to enforce the rights of ex-slaves in the South through a process called Reconstruction. However, in 1877, Reconstruction ended. By the 1890s, the Southern states' legislatures were all-white again. Southern Democrats, who did not support civil rights for blacks, completely ruled the South. This gave them a lot of power in the United States Congress. For example, Southern Democrats were able to make sure that laws against lynching did not pass.
Starting in 1890, Southern Democrats began to pass state laws that took away the rights African Americans had gained. These racist laws became known as Jim Crow laws. For example, they included:
Laws that made it impossible for blacks to vote (this is called disenfranchisement). Since they could not vote, blacks also could not be on juries.
Laws that required racial segregation - separation of blacks and whites. For example, blacks could not:
Go to the same schools, restaurants, or hospitals as whites
Use the same bathrooms as whites or drink from the same water fountains
Sit in front of whites on buses
In 1896, the United States Supreme Court ruled in a case called Plessy v. Ferguson that these laws were legal. They said that having things be "separate but equal" was fine. In the South, everything was separate. However, places like black schools and libraries got much less money and were not as good as places for whites. Things were separate, but not equal.
Violence against black people increased. Individuals, groups, police, and huge crowds of people could hurt or even kill African Americans, without the government trying to stop them or punishing them. Lynchings became more common.
=== Across the United States ===
Problems were worse in the South. However, social discrimination and tensions affected African Americans in other areas as well.
Segregation in housing was a problem across the United States. Many African Americans could not get mortgages to buy houses. Realtors would not sell black people houses in the suburbs, where white people lived. They also would not rent apartments in white areas. Until the 1950s, the federal government did nothing about this.
When he was elected in 1913, President Woodrow Wilson made government offices segregated. He believed that segregation was best for everyone.
Black people fought in both World War I and World War II. However, the military was segregated, and they were not given the same opportunities as white soldiers. After activism from black veterans, President Harry Truman de-segregated the military in 1948.
=== Early activism ===
African Americans tried to fight back against discrimination in many ways. They formed new groups and tried to form labor unions. They tried to use the courts to get justice. For example, in 1909, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was created. It fought to end race discrimination through lawsuits, education, and lobbying.
However, eventually, many African Americans became frustrated and began to dislike the idea of using slow, legal strategies to achieve desegregation. Instead, African American activists decided to use a combination of protests, nonviolence, and civil disobedience. This is how the Civil Rights Movement of 1954-1968 began.
=== Photo gallery ===
== Important events ==
=== Brown v. Board of Education (1954) ===
Schools in the South, and some other parts of the country, had been segregated since 1896. In that year, the Supreme Court had ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson that segregation was legal, as long as things were "separate but equal."
In 1951, thirteen black parents filed a class action lawsuit against the Board of Education in Topeka, Kansas. In the lawsuit, the parents argued that the black and white schools were not "separate but equal." They said the black school was much worse than the white one.
The lawsuit eventually went to the United States Supreme Court. After years of work, Thurgood Marshall and a team of other NAACP lawyers won the case. The Supreme Court ruled that segregated schools were illegal. All nine Supreme Court judges agreed.
In their decision, the Court said:
We conclude that, in ... public education, the doctrine of "separate but equal" has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.
This was the Civil Rights Movement's first major victory. However, Brown did not reverse Plessy v. Ferguson. Brown made segregation in schools illegal. But segregation in all other places was still legal.
=== The Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955-1956) ===
Civil rights leaders focused on Montgomery, Alabama, because the segregation there was so extreme. On December 1, 1955, local black leader Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a public bus to make room for a white passenger. Parks and was a civil rights activist and NAACP member; she had just returned from a training on nonviolent civil disobedience. She was arrested.
African-Americans gathered and organized the Montgomery Bus Boycott. They decided they would not ride on the buses again until they were treated the same as European-Americans. Under segregation, blacks could not sit in front of whites - they had to sit in the back of the bus. Also, if a white person told a black person to move so they could sit down, the black person had to.
Most of Montgomery's 50,000 African Americans took part in the boycott. It lasted for 381 days and almost bankrupt the bus system. Meanwhile, the NAACP had been working on a lawsuit about segregation on buses. In 1956, they won the case, and the Supreme Court ordered Alabama to de-segregate its buses. The boycott ended with a victory.
=== De-segregating Little Rock Central High School (1957) ===
In 1957, the NAACP had signed up nine African American students (called the "Little Rock Nine") to go to Little Rock Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. Before this, only whites were allowed at the school. However, the Little Rock School Board had agreed to follow the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education and de-segregate its schools.
Then came the black students' first day of school. The Governor of Arkansas called out soldiers from the Arkansas National Guard to prevent the black students from even entering the school. This was against a Supreme Court ruling, so President Dwight D. Eisenhower got involved. He took control of the Arkansas National Guard and ordered them to leave the school. Then he sent soldiers from the United States Army to protect the students. This was an important civil rights victory. It meant the federal government was willing to get involved and force states to end segregation in schools.
Unfortunately, the Little Rock Nine were treated very badly by many of the white students at the school. At the end of the school year, Little Rock Central High School closed so it would not have to allow black students the next year. Other schools across the South did the same thing.
=== Sit-ins (1958-1960) ===
Between 1958 and 1960, activists used sit-ins to protest segregation at lunch counters (small restaurants inside stores). They would sit at the lunch counter and politely ask to buy some food. When they were told to leave, they would continue to sit quietly at the counter. Often they would stay until the lunch counter closed. Groups of activists would keep coming back to sit in at the same places until those places agreed to serve African Americans at their lunch counters.
In 1958, the NAACP organized the first sit-in in Wichita, Kansas. They sat in at a lunch counter in a store called Dockum's Drug Store. After three weeks, they got the store to de-segregate. Not long after, all of the Dockum Drug Stores in Kansas were de-segregated. Next, students in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma led a successful sit-in at another drug store.
In 1960, college students (including some white students) began to sit in at a Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina. After a while, they began to sit in at other lunch counters. In the stores that held these lunch counters, sales dropped by one-third. These stores de-segregated to avoid continuing to lose money. After five months of sit-ins, the Woolworth's in Greensboro also de-segregated its lunch counter. Newspapers all over the country wrote about the Greensboro sit-ins. Soon, people started sitting in across the South.
A few days after the Greensboro students started their sit-in, students in Nashville, Tennessee began their own sit-ins. They chose stores in the part of Nashville that had the most businesses. Before starting their sit-ins, they decided they would not be violent, no matter what. They wrote out rules, which activists in other cities began to use also. Their rules said:
Do not [hit] back or curse if abused. ... Do not block entrances to stores outside [or] the aisles inside. [Be polite] and friendly at all times. Do sit straight; always face the counter. ... Do refer information seekers to your leader in a polite manner. Remember the teachings of Jesus, Gandhi, Martin Luther King. Love and nonviolence is the way.
Many of the Nashville students were attacked and abused by groups of white people; arrested; and even beaten by police. However, the students were always nonviolent. Their protests, and the attacks on them, brought more newspaper stories and attention. It also showed how the activists were truly nonviolent. After three months of sit-ins, all of the lunch counters in Nashville's downtown department stores were de-segregated.
Soon, there were sit-ins all over the country. Sit-ins even happened in Nevada, and in northern states like Ohio. Over 70,000 people, black and white, took part in sit-ins. They used sit-ins to protest all kinds of segregated places - not just lunch counters, but also beaches, parks, museums, libraries, swimming pools, and other public places.
The sit-ins even got the support of President Eisenhower. After the Greensboro sit-ins started, he said he was "deeply sympathetic with the efforts of any group to enjoy the rights of equality that they are guaranteed by the Constitution."
In April 1960, students who had led sit-ins were invited to a conference. At the conference, they decided to form the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). SNCC would become an important group in the civil rights movement.
=== Freedom Rides (1961) ===
In 1960, the Supreme Court had ruled in Boynton v. Virginia that it was illegal to segregate people on public transportation that was going from one state to another. In 1961, student activists decided to test whether the Southern states would follow this ruling. Groups of black and white activists decided to ride buses through the South, sitting together instead of segregating themselves. They planned to ride buses from Washington, D.C., to New Orleans, Louisiana. They called these rides the "Freedom Rides."
The Freedom Riders were met with danger and violence. For example:
One bus in Alabama was firebombed, and the Freedom Riders had to run for their lives.
In Birmingham, Alabama, Public Safety Commissioner Eugene "Bull" Connor let Ku Klux Klan members attack the Freedom Riders for 15 minutes before the police "protected" them. The Riders were badly beaten, and one needed 50 stitches in his head.
In Montgomery, Alabama, the Freedom Riders were attacked by a mob (a large, angry group) of white people. This caused a huge riot that lasted two hours. Five Freedom Riders needed to go to the hospital, and 22 others were hurt.
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) brought in more Freedom Riders to keep the movement going. They were also met with violence:
In Montgomery, another mob attacked a bus. They knocked one activist unconscious and knocked another's teeth out.
In Jackson, Mississippi, the Freedom Riders were arrested for using "white only" bathrooms and lunch counters.
New Freedom Riders joined the movement. As they arrived in Jackson, they were arrested also. By the end of the summer, more than 300 had been put in jail.
==== A new law ====
However, people around the country began to support the Freedom Riders, who had never used violence, even when being attacked. Eventually, Robert Kennedy, the Attorney General in his brother John F. Kennedy's government, insisted on a new law about de-segregation. It said that:
People could sit wherever they chose on buses
There could be no "white" and "colored" signs in bus stations
There could be no separate drinking fountains, toilets, or waiting rooms for whites and blacks
Lunch counters had to serve people of all races
=== Voter registration (1961-1965) ===
Between 1961 and 1965, activist groups worked on trying to get black people registered (signed up) to vote. Since the end of Reconstruction, the Southern states had passed laws and used many strategies to keep black people from registering to vote. Often, these laws did not apply to white people.
Voter registration activists started out in Mississippi. All of Mississippi's civil rights organizations joined together to try to get people registered. Activist groups in Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina then started similar programs. However, when the activists tried to register black people to vote, police, white racists, and the Ku Klux Klan beat, arrested, shot, and even murdered them.
Meanwhile, black people who tried to register to vote were fired from their jobs, thrown out of their homes, beaten, arrested, threatened, and sometimes murdered.
In 1964, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed. It made discrimination illegal, and specifically said it was illegal to have different voter registration requirements for different races. However, even after this law was passed, the Southern states still made it very difficult for black people to vote. Finally, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed. This law included ways to make sure that all United States citizens were getting their right to vote.
=== Integrating Mississippi universities (1956–1965) ===
Starting in 1956, a black man named Clyde Kennard wanted to go to Mississippi Southern College. Kennard had served in the Korean War, and he wanted to use the GI Bill to go to college. The college's president, William McCain, asked state politicians and a local racist group who supported segregation to make sure Kennard never got into the college.
Kenner was arrested twice for crimes he never committed. Eventually he was convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison. After Kennard had spent three years in prison doing forced labor, Governor Ross Barnett pardoned him. Journalists had looked into Kennard's case, and wrote that the state did not give Kennard the treatment he needed for his colon cancer. Kennard died that same year. Later, in 2006, a court ruled that Kennard was innocent of the crimes he had been sent to jail for .
In September 1962, James Meredith won a lawsuit that gave him the right to go to the University of Mississippi. He tried three times to get into the university to sign up for classes. Governor Ross Barnett blocked Meredith each time. He told Meredith: "[N]o school will be integrated in Mississippi while I am your Governor."
Attorney General Robert Kennedy sent United States Marshals to protect Meredith. On September 30, 1962, Meredith was able to enter the college with the Marshals protecting him. However, that evening, students and other racist whites started a riot. They threw rocks and fired guns at the Marshals. Two people were killed; 28 marshals were shot; and another 160 people were hurt. President John F. Kennedy sent the United States Army to the school to stop the riot. Meredith was able to begin classes at the college the day after the Army arrived. Meredith survived harassment and isolation at the college and graduated on August 18, 1963, with a a degree in political science.
Meredith and other activists kept working on de-segregating public universities. In 1965, the first two African American students were able to go to the University of Southern Mississippi.
=== Birmingham Campaign (1963) ===
In 1963, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) started a campaign in Birmingham, Alabama. Its goals were to de-segregate the stores in downtown Birmingham; make hiring fair; and create a committee, including blacks and whites, that would make a plan for de-segregating Birmingham's schools. Martin Luther King described Birmingham as "probably the most [completely] segregated city in the United States."
Birmingham's Commissioner of Public Safety was Eugene "Bull" Connor. (A Commissioner of Public Safety is in charge of the police and fire department, and deals with emergencies that could be dangerous to people in the city.) Connor was very much against integration. He often let the police, Ku Klux Klan, and racist white people attack civil rights activists. He promised that blacks and whites would never be integrated in Birmingham.
The activists used a few different non-violent ways of protesting, including sit-ins, "kneel-ins" at local churches, and marches.p. 218 However, the city got a court order saying all protests like this were illegal. The activists knew this was illegal, and in an act of civil disobedience, they refused to follow the court order.p. 108 The protesters, including Martin Luther King, were arrested.
While in jail, King was held in solitary confinement. While there, he wrote his famous "Letter from Birmingham Jail." He was let go after about a week.
==== The Children's Crusade ====
However, very few activists could afford to risk being arrested. One of SCLC's leaders then came up with the idea of training high school, college, and elementary school students to take part in the protests. He reasoned that students did not have full-time jobs to go to, they did not have families to take care of, and they could "afford" to be in jail more than their parents.
Newsweek magazine later named this plan the "Children's Crusade." On May 2, more than 600 students, including some as young as 8 years old, tried to march from a local church to City Hall. They were all arrested.
The next day, another 1,000 students started to march. Bull Connor let police dogs loose to attack them and used fire hoses to knock down the students. Reporters were there, and videos and pictures showing the violence were shown on television and printed across the country.
==== Agreement ====
People throughout the United States were so angry at seeing these videos that President Kennedy worked with the SCLC and the white businesses in Birmingham to work out an agreement. It said:
Lunch counters and other public places downtown would be de-segregated
They would create a committee to figure out how to stop discrimination in hiring
All jailed protesters would be let go (labor unions like the AFL-CIO had helped raise bail money)
Black and white leaders would communicate regularly
Some of Birmingham's whites were not happy with this agreement. They bombed the SCLC's headquarters; the home of King's brother; and a hotel where King had been staying. Thousands of blacks reacted by rioting; some burned buildings and one even stabbed and hurt a police officer.p. 301
On September 15, 1963, the Ku Klux Klan bombed a church in Birmingham, where civil rights activists often met before starting their marches. Since it was a Sunday, church services were going on. The bomb killed four young girls and hurt 22 other people.
=== "Rising tide of discontent" (1963) ===
During the spring and summer of 1963, there were protests in over a hundred United States cities, including Northern cities. There were riots in Chicago after a white police officer shot a 14-year-old black boy who was running away from the scene of a robbery. In Philadelphia and Harlem, black activists and white workers fought when the activists tried to integrate state-run construction projects. On June 6, over a thousand white people attacked a sit-in in North Carolina; black activists fought back, and a white man was killed.
In Cambridge, Maryland, white leaders declared martial law to stop fighting between blacks and whites. Attorney General Robert Kennedy had to get involved to create an agreement to de-segregate the city.
On June 11, 1963, Alabama Governor George Wallace actually stood in the doorway of the University of Alabama to stop its first two black students from getting inside. President Kennedy had to send United States soldiers to make him get out of the doorway, and make sure that the black students could get into the school.
Meanwhile, the Kennedy government had become very worried. Black leaders had told Robert Kennedy that it was getting harder and harder for African Americans to be nonviolent when they were getting attacked, and when it was taking so long for the United States government to help them get their civil rights. On the evening of June 11, President Kennedy gave a speech about civil rights. He talked about "a rising tide of discontent [unhappiness] that threatens the public safety." He asked Congress to pass new civil rights laws. He also asked Americans to support civil rights as "a moral issue ... in our daily lives."
In the early morning of June 12, Medgar Evers, a leader of the Mississippi NAACP, was murdered by a Ku Klux Klan member.p. 113 The next week, President Kennedy gave Congress his Civil Rights bill, and asked them to make it into law.p. 126
=== The March on Washington (1963) ===
In 1963, civil rights leaders planned a protest march in Washington, D.C. All of the major civil rights groups, some labor unions, and other liberal groups cooperated in planning the march. The march's full name was "The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom." The goals for the march were to get civil rights laws passed; to get the U.S. government to create more jobs; and to get equal, good housing, education, jobs, and voting rights for everyone. However, the most important goal was to get President Kennedy's civil rights law passed.p. 159
Many people thought it would be impossible for so many activists to come together without violence and rioting. The United States government got 19,000 soldiers ready nearby, in case of riots. Hospitals got ready to treat huge numbers of injured people. The government made selling alcohol in Washington, D.C., illegal for the day.p. 159
The March on Washington was one of the largest non-violent protests for human rights in United States history. Martin Luther King, Jr., thought that having 100,000 marchers would make the event successful. On August 28, 1963, about 250,000 activists from all over the country came together for the march. The marchers included about 60,000 white people (including church groups and labor union members), and between 75 and 100 members of Congress.p. 160 Together, they marched from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial. There, they listened to civil rights leaders speak.
Martin Luther King, Jr., spoke last. His speech, called "I Have a Dream," became one of history's most famous civil rights speeches.
Historians have said that the March on Washington helped get President Kennedy's civil rights bill passed.
=== Malcolm X joins the movement (1964) ===
Malcolm X was an American minister who converted to Islam in prison, around 1948. He became a member of the Nation of Islam.p. 138 This group believed in black supremacy - that the black race was the best of all. They believed that blacks should be completely independent from whites, and should eventually return to Africa.pp. 127–128, 132–138pp. 149–152 They also believed that black people had the right to fight back and use violence to get their rights. Because of this, Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam did not support the civil rights movement, because it was non-violent and supported integration.pp. 79–80
However, in March 1964, Malcolm X was kicked out of the Nation of Islam, because he had disagreements with the group's leader, Elijah Muhammad. He offered to work with other civil rights groups, if they accepted that blacks had the right to defend themselves.
On March 26, 1964, Malcolm met with Martin Luther King, Jr. Malcolm had a plan to bring the United States before the United Nations on charges that the U.S. violated African Americans' human rights. Dr. King may have been planning to support this.
Between 1963 and 1964, civil rights activists got more angry and more likely to fight back against whites. In April 1964, Malcolm gave a famous speech called "The Ballot or the Bullet." ("The ballot" means "voting.") In the speech, he said that if the U.S. government is "unwilling or unable to defend the lives and the property of Negroes," then African Americans should defend themselves.p. 43 He warned politicians that many African Americans were not willing "to turn the other cheek any longer."p. 25 Then he warned white America about what would happen if blacks were not allowed to vote:
=== Mississippi Freedom Summer (1964) ===
In the summer of 1964, civil rights groups brought almost 1,000 activists to Mississippi. Most of them were white college students.p. 66 Their goals were to work together with black activists to register voters, and to teach summer school to black children in "Freedom Schools." They also wanted to help create the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP). At the time, only white people could take part in the Mississippi Democratic Party. The MFDP was planned as another political party that would allow black and white Democrats to take part in politics.
Many white Mississippians were angry that people from other states were coming in and trying to change their society. Government workers, police, the Ku Klux Klan, and other racist whites used many strategies to attack the activists and black people who were trying to register to vote. The Freedom Summer project lasted for ten weeks. During that time, 1,062 activists were arrested; 80 were beaten; and 4 were killed. Three black Mississippians were murdered because they supported civil rights. Thirty-seven churches, and thirty black homes or businesses, were bombed or burned.
On June 21, 1964, three Freedom Summer activists disappeared. Weeks later, their bodies were found. They had been murdered by members of the local Ku Klux Klan - including some who were also police in the Neshoba County sheriff's department. When people were searching for their bodies in local swamps and rivers, they found the bodies of a 14-year-old boy and seven other men who also seemed to have been murdered at some time.
During Freedom Summer, activists set up at least 30 Freedom Schools, and taught about 3,500 students. The students included children, adults, and the elderly. The schools taught about many things, like black history; civil rights; politics; the freedom movement; and the basic reading and writing skills needed to vote.
Also during the summer, about 17,000 black Mississippians tried to register to vote. Only 1,600 were able to. However, more than 80,000 joined the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP). This showed that they wanted to vote and take part in politics, not just let white people do it for them.
=== Civil Rights Act of 1964 ===
John F. Kennedy's suggested civil rights bill had support from Northern members of Congress - both Democrats and Republicans. However, Southern Senators blocked the suggested law from passing. They filibustered for 54 days to block the bill from becoming a law. Finally, President Lyndon B. Johnson got a bill to pass.
On July 2, 1964, Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The law said:
It was illegal to discriminate against people in public places or jobs, just because of their race, skin color, religion, sex, or home country
If places broke the law, the Attorney General could file lawsuits against them to force them to follow the law
Any state or local laws that made it legal to discriminate in public places or jobs were no longer legal
=== King awarded Nobel Peace Prize (1964) ===
In December 1964, Martin Luther King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. When giving him the award, the Chairman of the Nobel Committee said:
=== Selma to Montgomery Marches (1965) ===
In January 1965, Martin Luther King and the SCLC went to Selma, Alabama. Civil rights groups there had asked them to come help get black people registered to vote. At the time, 99% of the people registered to vote in Selma were white. Together, they started working on voting rights.
However, the next month, an African-American man named Jimmie Lee Jackson was shot by a police officer during a peaceful march. Jackson died.pp. 121–123 Many African-American people were very angry. The SCLC was worried that people were so angry that they would get violent.
The SCLC decided to organize a march from Selma to Montgomery. This would be a 54-mile (87-kilometer) march. Activists hoped the march would show how badly African-Americans wanted to vote. They also wanted to show that they would not let racism or violence stop them from getting equal rights.
The first march was on March 7, 1965. Police officers and racist whites attacked the marchers with clubs and tear gas. They threatened to throw the marchers off the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Seventeen marchers had to go to the hospital, and 50 others were also injured. This day came to be called Bloody Sunday. Pictures and film of the marchers being beaten were shown in newspapers and on television around the world.
Seeing these things made more people support the civil rights activists. People came from all over the United States to march with the activists. One of them, James Reeb, was attacked by white people for supporting civil rights. He died on March 11, 1965.
Finally, President Johnson decided to send soldiers from the United States Army and the Alabama National Guard to protect the marchers. From March 21 to March 25, the marchers walked along the "Jefferson Davis Highway" from Selma to Montgomery. On March 25, 25,000 people entered Montgomery. Martin Luther King gave a speech called "How Long? Not Long" at the Alabama State Capitol. He told the marchers that it would not be long before they had equal rights, "because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."
After the march, Viola Liuzzo, a white woman from Detroit, drove some other marchers to the airport. While she was driving back, she was murdered by three members of the Ku Klux Klan.
=== The Voting Rights Act of 1965 ===
On August 6, 1965, the United States passed the Voting Rights Act. This law made it illegal to stop somebody from voting because of their race. This meant that all the state laws that kept black people from voting were now illegal.
For almost 100 years, registrars (the government workers who had registered people to vote) were all white. They had total power over who they could register and who they would not register. If a registrar refused to let a black person register, that person could only file a lawsuit, which they were not likely to win. However, the Voting Rights Act finally made a change to this system. If a registrar discriminated against black people, the Attorney General could send federal workers to replace local registrars.
The law worked right away. Within a few months, 250,000 new black voters had signed up to vote. One out of every three of them was registered by a federal worker who replaced a racist registrar. In 1965, 74% of Mississippi's black voters actually voted, and more black politicians were elected in Mississippi than in any other state. By 1967, most African Americans were registered to vote in 9 of the 13 states in the South.
Politics in the South were completely changed by African Americans having the power to vote. White politicians could no longer make laws about African Americans without blacks having a say. In many parts of the South, black people outnumbered whites. This meant that they could vote in black politicians, and vote out racist whites. Also, black people who were registered to vote could be on juries. Before this, any time an African American was charged with a crime, the jury that decided whether they were guilty would be all-white.
=== Fair housing movements (1966-1968) ===
From 1966 to 1968, the civil rights movement focused a lot on fair housing. Even outside the South, fair housing was a problem. For example, in 1963, California passed a Fair Housing Act which made segregation in housing illegal. White voters and real estate lobbyists got the law reversed the next year. This helped cause the Watts Riots. (Later, in 1966, California made the Fair Housing Act the law again.)
Activists, including Martin Luther King, led a movement for fair housing in Chicago in 1966. The next year, young NAACP members did the same in Milwaukee. Activists in both cities got attacked physically by white homeowners, and legally by politicians who supported segregation.
==== The Fair Housing Bill ====
Of all the civil rights laws passed during the Civil Rights Movement, the Fair Housing Act was the hardest to pass. The law would make discrimination in housing illegal. This meant black people would be allowed to move into white neighborhoods. As Senator Walter Mondale said: "This was civil rights getting personal."
The suggested Fair Housing Bill was sent to the United States Senate first. There, most Senators - Northern and Southern - were against the bill. In March of 1968, the Senate sent a weaker version to the House of Representatives. The House was expected to make changes that would make the bill even weaker.
That did not happen. On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King was murdered. This made many members of Congress feel like they needed to do something about civil rights quickly. The day after Dr. King's murder, Senator Mondale stood in front of the Senate and said:
On April 10, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1968. President Johnson signed the law the next day. Part of the law is called the "Fair Housing Act." It makes it illegal to discriminate in selling, renting, or lending money for housing, based on a person's race, skin color, religion, or home country.
=== The King assassination and the Poor People's Campaign (1968) ===
In 1968, Martin Luther King and the SCLC were planning the Poor People's Campaign. People of all races took part in the movement. The movement's goal was to decrease poverty for people of all races.
As part of his work against poverty, Dr. King and the SCLC started to speak out against the Vietnam War. King argued that poor people in Vietnam were being killed, and that the War would only make them poorer. He also argued that the United States was spending more and more money and time on the War, and less on programs to help poor Americans.
In March 1968, Dr. King was invited to Memphis, Tennessee to support garbage workers that were on strike. These workers were paid very little, and two workers had been killed doing their jobs. They wanted to be members of a labor union. Dr. King thought this strike was a perfect fit for his Poor People's Campaign. As soon as he got to Memphis, King started getting threats.
The day before he was murdered, King gave a sermon called "I've Been to the Mountaintop." The next day he was murdered. After King was killed, people rioted in more than 100 cities across the United States.
Civil rights leader Ralph Abernathy continued the Poor People's Campaign after King's death. About 3,000 activists camped out on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., for about six weeks.
The day before Dr. King's funeral, his wife, Coretta Scott King, and three of their children led 20,000 marchers through Memphis. Soldiers protected the marchers. On April 9, Mrs. King led another 150,000 people through Atlanta during Dr. King's funeral. An old, wooden wagon, pulled by mules, pulled Dr. King's casket. The wagon was a symbol of Dr. King's Poor People's Campaign.
Mrs. King once said:
== Deaths ==
Many people were killed during the Civil Rights Movement. Some were killed because they supported civil rights. Others were killed by the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) or other racist whites who wanted to terrorize black people. No one knows just how many people were killed during the Civil Rights Movement. However, here are some examples. People whose names are highlighted in blue were children or teenagers when they were killed.
An unknown number of other people died or were killed during the Civil Rights Movement.
== Related pages ==
History: Slavery; American Civil War; Reconstruction; Plessy v. Ferguson
Causes: Racism; white supremacy; racial segregation; discrimination; Jim Crow laws; lynchings
People: Martin Luther King, Jr.; Coretta Scott King; James Lawson; James Meredith; Little Rock Nine; Rosa Parks; Malcolm X
Groups: National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP); Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC); Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
Law & government: Law of the United States; case law; federal law; legislation; Constitution of the United States; Supreme Court; United States Congress
Rights: Civil rights; civil liberties; human rights; right to vote; social equality; social justice
Other: Ku Klux Klan; sundown towns; White Citizens' Council
== Notes ==
== References ==
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CNN
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Former President Joe Biden celebrated Juneteenth on Thursday at a historic Black church in Texas, calling for Americans to come together to push the country forward.
“I don’t come here today to only commemorate the past. I come here because we know the good Lord isn’t done with us yet,” Biden said, adding, “We have work to do. We need to keep pushing America forward.”
“We’re the United States of America,” Biden said. “There’s nothing, nothing beyond our capacity when we act together.”
Biden’s remarks at the historic Reedy Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Galveston, Texas, come nearly four years after he made Juneteenth a national holiday — the first federal holiday established since Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 1983. Biden said he was “very proud” to sign the bipartisan legislation.
U.S. President Donald Trump stops and talks to the media before he boards Marine One on the South Lawn at the White House on June 15, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images
Related article
Trump criticizes ‘non-working holidays’ on Juneteenth
“It made me proud. Proud that we were united,” Biden said. “Proud, despite all our differences, we can still come together for things that matter most.”
Juneteenth is a celebration of the end of slavery, commemorating the day Union Army Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger rode into Galveston and told a group of slaves that the Civil War had ended and they were free — more than two years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.
“Juneteenth is a day of liberation, a day of remembrance and a day of celebration,” Biden said. “Juneteenth represents both the long and hard night of slavery and subjugation and the promise of joyful morning to come.”
“Our federal holidays say … who we are as Americans,” Biden later added. “What we celebrate says what we value.”
President Donald Trump — who has not signed a proclamation this year observing Juneteenth — took to social media on Thursday to criticize the number of non-working holidays in the United States.
“Too many non-working holidays in America. It is costing our Country $BILLIONS OF DOLLARS to keep all of these businesses closed,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post, adding, “It must change if we are going to, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
Trump’s post comes as he continues to make the elimination of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs a centerpiece of his second administration, ordering a ban on DEI programs in federal agencies on his first day in office.
Without mentioning Trump by name, Biden reflected on the nation’s history and the current political climate.
“We need to be honest about our history,” Biden said on Thursday, pointing to “efforts to erase history from our textbooks and our classrooms.”
Biden’s administration — which came in the aftermath of widespread protests against racial injustice following George Floyd’s killing in 2020 — embraced diversity and DEI efforts. Biden ran alongside the first Black, South Asian and woman vice president in 2020, and he had the most racially diverse presidential Cabinet in US history. Biden also nominated Ketanji Brown Jackson to become the first Black woman Supreme Court justice.
Biden also signed legislation to rename nine military bases that were named after Confederate leaders. The Trump administration has since moved to restore the names of each of the bases.
Biden’s Thursday remarks come two months after his office announced that the former president, 82, has been diagnosed with an “aggressive form” of prostate cancer that spread to his bones.
Late last month, the former president struck an optimistic tone when he spoke publicly for the first time about his cancer diagnosis, telling reporters: “We’re going to be able to beat this.”
He similarly ended on an energized chord Thursday, telling the churchgoers in Galveston, “Let’s get the hell to work and get more done.”
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