Ahead of Donald Trump's inauguration, Joe Biden urges Americans to keep “the faith”

Joe Biden on Sunday, January 19, urged Americans to keep “faith”on the eve of the inauguration of his enemy Donald Trump, during a final trip to the heart of the black community of South Carolina, decisive for his presidential victory in 2020. The 46^e American president, who will leave power to the 47th on Monday^ehad chosen this Sunday to honor the African-American civil rights hero, Martin Luther King Jr., assassinated on April 4, 1968.

For their final official trip, Joe and Jill Biden spent the day in the historic city of Charleston, South Carolina, marked by slavery and racial segregation and, in 2015, by a terrible racist killing against black parishioners. .

The Democratic president, a devout Catholic, went to the Protestant Royal Missionary Baptist Church to attend a religious service. “Every time I spend time in a black church, I think of one thing: the word “hope””launched the politician at the twilight of his career, citing his two models for more than half a century: the icon Martin Luther King Jr. and the emblematic senator Bobby Kennedy, also assassinated in 1968.

“My father used to say that the greatest sin is the abuse of power”continued Joe Biden, without ever naming Donald Trump. But “faith teaches us that the America of our dreams is always closer than we think”pleaded this 82-year-old believer, in a speech much more optimistic than his very dark farewell to the Nation on Wednesday, when he denounced a “oligarchy taking shape in America”. “Let’s keep the faith for better days”he concluded to the applause of faithful standing in the church.

On Sunday, Joe Biden also granted his last presidential pardons and commutations: he posthumously pardoned the Jamaican Marcus Garvey, black activist and central figure of the Rastafari movement. Died in 1940, he was a precursor of Pan-Africanism by defending a return of descendants of black slaves to Africa.