What Will The Election of Joe Biden Mean for Black America?

From the ads he ran calling for the death penalty of five Black and Brown teens, to the false claims that former President Barack Obama wasn’t born in the United States, Donald Trump has had a strained relationship with the Black community for years. So it’s no wonder he had a hard time winning them over in the 2016 presidential election.

In 2016, Trump asked Black voters, “What do you have to lose?” by choosing him over his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton. His half-hearted invitation to support his presidential campaign wasn’t enough for him to win over a majority of the African-American community, but he did manage to win a small percentage of the Black vote and ultimately the presidency.  

In his four years in office, Trump showed the Black community exactly what they had to lose. He defended Confederate monuments, called a group of White supremacists ‘very fine people,’ and mishandled a public health crisis that has disproportionately claimed the lives of people of color. For those in the Black community who were keeping score, those misdeeds were enough to motivate them to make sure he was a one-term president.

Nevertheless, Trump persisted and tried courting Black voters again in 2020. In his reelection campaign message, Trump claimed to have done more for Black Americans than any president since Abraham Lincoln, citing funding for HBCUs and low African-American unemployment numbers among his accomplishments. And less than two months before the election, he rolled out his Platinum Plan, a $500 billion plan for Black America, which included expanding school choice, criminal justice reform, and making Juneteenth a federal holiday. He even got a couple of high-profile endorsements from rappers Lil Wayne and 50 Cent. 

But record voter participation sent a message that a large segment of the country wanted a change in the Oval Office. Nearly 80,000,000 Americans cast their vote for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, giving them more votes than any presidential ticket in the country’s history. 

“It’s also about building up impoverished Black communities. I’m not asking for reparations, but how do you bring money to Black communities to combat this 200-year prejudice that has been around since slavery?”

Biden clenched his win in the key battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Georgia, relying heavily on support from people of color in urban areas. 42 percent of Whites voted for Joe Biden, compared to 66 percent of Latinx voters, and an overwhelming 87 percent of Blacks. The energy from the Black community in the 2020 election was the result of a group that has grown tired of the status quo. But can the same group that delivered Biden to the White House count on him to answer the calls for social justice and police reform that moved them to protest in the streets of cities across the country during a pandemic?  

We asked Walter, a 25-year-old Real Estate Investment Associate in New York City, who said he felt like he was voting against Donald Trump rather than for Joe Biden. “No one was excited to vote, but we were motivated because we felt like it was a necessity,” he said. He’s not convinced that a Joe Biden presidency will do enough work on the issues he cares about most, such as racial justice and progressive economic reform. He adds that he was more excited about progressive candidates like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. 

In his victory speech, Biden thanked Black voters who saved his campaign and carried him across the finish line to the White House and promised to have their backs. But for Walter, Biden needs to do more than put Black people in cabinet and advisory roles to prove that he is prepared to act in his best interest. “It’s also about building up impoverished Black communities. I’m not asking for reparations, but how do you bring money to Black communities to combat this 200-year prejudice that has been around since slavery?” Being a 70-something-year-old white dude, I’m not sure he even knows what the problems are, but I’m glad he’s willing to listen. I’m not sure what he can do, but I’m hoping for something revolutionary.