Research has shown that nationwide, the segregation of black students in public schools declined significantly between 1968 and 1980, the period during which the courts decided that busing could be used to aid school integration. Polling in the 1970s found only single-digit support for the practice. Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has come under fire for a 1977 quote regarding the racial integration of public schools. Biden defended his record, responding that it was the federal funding of busing that he had opposed, believing that local authorities should be responsible for paying for busing. “And that little girl was me.”, [Read a transcript of the exchange between Ms. Harris and Mr. To continue reading login or create an account. There was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools. "But I also believe, and it's personal, it was hurtful, to hear you talk about the reputations of two U.S. senators who built their reputations and career on the segregation of race in this country.
A spokesman for Mr. Biden recently told The New York Times that he had always supported integration, but that he did not think busing was the right mechanism to achieve it. According to CNN, Biden also sought to work alongside Southern segregationists in his fight against busing. “There are moments in history when states fail to preserve the civil rights of all people,” Harris said, adding that that’s when the federal government needs to step in. After the exchange, Google searches for the term busing spiked by 3,150 percent. Biden’s full quote be found in the text of the 1977 hearing. This interactive guide can help you ensure your vote is counted. Joe Biden and Donald Trump need 270 electoral votes to reach the White House. And that little girl was me.”.

In an interview with a local Newark, Delaware newspaper, rediscovered by The Washington Post in March, Biden suggested that the government-backed plan would "even the race" but "insure mediocrity" by holding whites back. Here is what the Democratic presidential candidate actually said in a 1977 Senate hearing. But speaking at a conference Friday in Chicago, Mr. Biden doubled down, claiming that he had “never, never, never ever opposed voluntary busing” like the program Ms. Harris participated in as a child, implicitly drawing a distinction between voluntary busing allowed by some local governments and the mandatory, court-ordered busing that also took place decades ago. “There was a little girl in California who was a part of the second class to integrate her public schools and she was bused to school every day,” Ms. Harris said. As a result, she argued, it was the federal government’s responsibility to step in. "I do not believe you are a racist," the 54-year-old senator said to Biden. Joe Biden walked into a packed school gymnasium in Delaware in the 1970s, facing an angry crowd that urged him to take the toughest possible stance against school busing. Try building your own coalition of battleground states to see potential outcomes. Busing, Mr. Biden said, was a “liberal train wreck” that was “tearing people apart” there. Pence heads to Iowa, as Biden and Trump catch their breath and host fund-raisers. He spoke out publicly against Delaware’s court-ordered school-busing program, arguing that the money spent on transportation could be better spent on other educational needs, and that it made no sense to stop students from attending a school just blocks away from their homes. "I am philosophically opposed to quota systems," he said. In his 2007 memoir, Mr. Biden discussed a cross-district busing effort in the 1970s aimed at desegregating schools in a county in Delaware — his home state. When Kamala Harris attacked Joe Biden for opposing federally mandated busing in the 1970s, holding herself up as the beneficiary of a school integration program as a … “It’s an asinine concept, the utility of which has never been proven to me.”, “The new integration plans being offered are really just quota-systems to assure a certain number of blacks, Chicanos, or whatever in each school,” he added. ", Biden's record on race has been under intense scrutiny in the past week after he celebrated the fact that he was able to work with two segregationist senators, adding that one "never called me 'boy'; he always called me 'son.'". "I don't buy that. a deeply personal and at times lacerating explanation, as he did on the campaign trail this month, speaking at a conference Friday in Chicago, did not support integrating schools through busing, the segregationist Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina. “Busing is unpopular for many reasons,” The New York Times reported in 1978. ", In a 1977 Senate Judiciary hearing, Biden did talk about busing policies and how “unless we do something about this, my children are going to grow up in a jungle, the jungle being a racial jungle with tensions having built so high that it is going to explode at some point.”, The quote in the claim that has been spreading online is false.
"I did not oppose busing in America. He feared busing would anger white people whose children would be sent to “inferior” schools in urban neighborhoods and from black people, whose children would come to resent conditions in the “ghetto,” the Times reported. “That’s fine,” he said. “What I opposed is busing ordered by the Department of Education.”. When he was a freshman Delaware senator, Biden opposed the integration method and championed an anti-busing campaign in the Senate. RELATED: VERIFY: Your mail-in ballot will be sent regardless if it has a stamp or not, RELATED: VERIFY: Folded American flags aren't only gifted to veterans or families of fallen veterans. Biden's history with busing. Mr. Biden’s remarks on Friday about never having been opposed to “voluntary” busing appeared to echo an argument he made the night before, on the debate stage. Senator Kamala Harris drew the loudest applause of the night after she confronted former Vice President Joe Biden for opposing busing in Wilmington, Delaware. But by that time, most busing plans had been dismantled and were considered by some to be a vestige of a different era. As a senator from Delaware, Joseph R. Biden Jr. was a liberal on most civil rights issues, but he was also a leading opponent of integrating schools through busing in the 1970s and the 1980s. Here’s a look at what we know about Mr. Biden’s record in the 1970s and ’80s, as a senator from Delaware, and how it squares with the claims he made this week. Joe Biden Forced to Defend Record on Segregation In Face of Kamala Harris Attacks | Politics. In an attempt to highlight other aspects of Mr. Biden’s record on civil rights, he pointed to comments in 1975 calling for housing and employment integration, and in 1986 pressing Justice William H. Rehnquist on integration. You have 4 free articles remaining this month, Sign-up to our daily newsletter for more articles like this + access to 5 extra articles. Mr. Biden called her remarks “a mischaracterization of my position across the board.” And when Ms. Harris asked moments later whether Mr. Biden would agree that he had been “wrong to oppose busing in America,” Mr. Biden again pushed back on the premise. your own coalition of battleground states. Google Trends: Searches for busing have spiked 3,150% since the issue was raised by Harris in #DemDebate2. Claims posted online show a photo of Biden next to a quote, “I don’t want my children to grow up in a jungle, a racial jungle.”, Did Joe Biden really say that busing policies for desegregation would turn public schools into “a racial jungle? The spokesman also said Mr. Biden thought busing placed an undue burden on African-American families. Who the hell do we think we are, that the only way a black man or woman can learn is if they rub shoulders with my white child?”, He went on: “The problem, you see, is that the courts have gone overboard in their interpretation of what is required to remedy unlawful segregation. In an instantly memorable exchange, Ms. Harris said it had been “very hurtful” to hear Mr. Biden invoke the names of two segregationist senators as he did on the campaign trail this month. Busing ended in Wilmington, Del., Mr. Biden’s hometown, in 1995 after 17 years of federally mandated measures. “That, to me, is the most racist concept you can come up with; what it says is, ‘in order for your child with curly black hair, brown eyes and dark skin to be able to learn anything, he needs to sit next to my blond-haired, blue-eyed son.’ That’s racist! Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden (2ndL) speaks while South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg (L-R) , Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) listen in the second night of the first Democratic presidential debate on June 27, 2019 in Miami, Florida.

In February 1982, he voted for an amendment to a Justice Department appropriations bill described as the “toughest anti-busing rider ever approved by either chamber of Congress.” A month later, he voted in favor of another amendment that allowed the Justice Department to participate in litigation “to remove or reduce the requirement of busing in existing court decrees or judgments.”. “I did not oppose busing in America,” Mr. Biden said. See why nearly a quarter of a million subscribers begin their day with the Starting 5. U.S. schools were technically desegregated by the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling in 1954, however, continued housing issues meant that many American schools across the country remained largely segregated. Read the latest updates. Congressional opposition to busing continued. Biden did not directly say, “I don’t want my children to grow up in a jungle, a racial jungle.”. The state has since passed a law saying … Since launching his 2020 bid for the presidency earlier this year, Biden has repeatedly come under fire for taking a stance against busing in the 1970s. The words resurfaced after a June 2019 Democratic debate in which Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., confronted Biden, saying, “There was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools and she was bused to school every day. And that little girl was me.". Also called desegregation busing, the term refers to the American practice of alleviating racial segregation by transporting students to schools within or outside their local districts. What I opposed was busing ordered by the Department of Education," he explained. In order to even the score, we must now give the black man a head start, or even hold the white man back, to even the race.’”.


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