President Joe Biden called Monday for action to end the type of “hate-fuelled violence” that authorities said motivated a white man to fatally shoot three Black people at a Florida store over the weekend. Biden said people must speak out about injustice.
“We can’t let hate prevail, and it’s on the rise. It’s not diminishing,” Biden said at the White House as he met with civil rights advocates and the children of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. on the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington.
“Silence, I believe, we’ve all said many times, silence is complicity,” Biden said. “We’re not going to remain silent and, so, we have to act against this hate-fuelled violence.”
Biden’s meeting with the King family and other civil rights advocates came two days after Saturday’s racist attack in Jacksonville, Florida. Three Black people were shot to death by a white man wearing a mask and firing a weapon emblazoned with a swastika. The shooter, who had also posted racist writings, killed himself. Asked how he would stop hatred, Biden said: “By talking directly to the American people because I think the vast majority of the American people agree with this table,” referring to the civil rights advocates who were in the room with him. “But we have to understand, this is serious.”
