Then-presidential candidate Joe Biden said in June 2020 that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination could not match the death of George Floyd in its “impact.”
“Even Dr. King’s assassination did not have the worldwide impact that George Floyd’s death did,” Biden said at the time.
Biden made the remark at a roundtable event in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as part of his 2020 presidential campaign. Then-candidate Biden proceeded to stress the increasing importance of cellphones in shedding light on racial injustices.
“What happened to George Floyd — now you got how many people around the country, millions of cellphones. It’s changed the way everybody’s looking at this,” he added. “Look at the millions of people marching around the world.”
King’s niece, Alveda King, blasted Biden for his assertion, questioning the purpose behind the comparison in an exclusive June 2020 interview with the Daily Caller News Foundation. (RELATED: Joe Biden Remembers When MLK And RFK Were Assassinated … ‘In The 70s’)
“I believe that Mr. Biden continues to speak from his basement, from a reality that is different from what’s happening in the real world,” she said. “Why is it necessary to compare Martin Luther King Jr. and George Floyd?”
In a Monday speech, dedicated to Martin Luther King Jr.’s Day, Biden doubled down on his call to pass election laws, arguing that the nation had to “commit to his [MLK’s] unfinished work.”