President Joe Biden addresses attendees at the International African-American Museum on Jan. 19, 2025 in Charleston, South Carolina. One day before the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump, Biden thanked South Carolina for its support during his speech. (Photo by Grant Baldwin/Getty Images)
CHARLESTON, S.C. — President Joe Biden spent the final day of his tenure in the state that catapulted him into the office: South Carolina.
The day before Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Biden spoke at the Royal Missionary Baptist Church in North Charleston, then the International African American Museum in downtown Charleston.
After he touched down in South Carolina, Biden also talked to reporters about the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that resulted in the release Sunday of three hostages.
Addressing one of South Carolina’s largest Black churches, Biden again thanked South Carolina voters for putting him on the path to be the 46th president.
“I could not be standing here, I would not be standing here and that’s not hyperbole, at this pulpit were it not for Jim Clyburn,” Biden told the congregation.
It was Clyburn’s endorsement in 2020 that reinvigorated Biden’s campaign. After a poor start in his third attempt at the office, a victory in the South Carolina primary culminated in his victory over then-President Donald Trump, Biden’s predecessor and successor.
When he stepped off Air Force One on Sunday, Biden hugged Clyburn, South Carolina’s only Democrat and longest-serving congressman, whom Biden’s referred to as his best friend.
At both the church and the museum, Clyburn commended Biden for his work.
“I know Joe, we know Joe, but most importantly Joe knows us,” Clyburn said at the museum. “He has demonstrated in these four years how well he knows the American people.
Biden easily won South Carolina‘s Democratic presidential primary in February, the party’s first recognized primary of the campaign, against two extreme long-shot candidates. But it ultimately didn’t matter, as he dropped out in July following a disastrous debate performance against Trump.
Ceasefire
Biden spoke on the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas that went into effect Sunday, declaring “the guns in Gaza have gone silent.” Biden told reporters that two American hostages will be released as part of the first phase of the deal.
The agreement reached last week ended more than 15 months of warfare between Israel and Hamas.
The decades-long conflict was reignited Oct. 7, 2023, after Hamas militants launched a surprise attack on Israel, killing about 1,200 civilians and taking some 250 hostages.
“I’ve worked in foreign policy for decades and this is one of the toughest negotiations I’ve been a part of,” Biden said.
Biden said the second phase of the agreement will include the release of Israeli soldiers and “the permanent end to the war without Hamas in power or able to threaten Israel.”
The first three hostages released from Gaza arrived in Israel on Sunday.
Church
There’s one word that resonates with Biden when he steps into a Black church, he said Sunday: Hope.
“Not a joke,” he said to the congregation at Royal Missionary, a church he visited in February of 2020 during his presidential run.
It’s among several Black churches in South Carolina Biden’s spoken at over the years.
Following the 2015 Mother Emmanuel massacre of nine people following a Wednesday night prayer service, then-Vice President Biden spoke at the funeral for Rev. Clementa Pinckney, the church’s pastor and state senator. Last month, Biden commuted the sentences of 37 inmates on federal death row. The Mother Emanuel shooter was not one of them.
Biden’s first campaign stop a year ago was at Mother Emanuel.
In North Charleston on Sunday, Biden quoted scripture and touched on his own personal tragedies as he delivered a message of persistence, community and hope, as well as honored Martin Luther King Jr.
“Your friends bear witness, they see your pain, they pick you up, they help you get to Sunday, from pain to purpose,” said Biden, who added that multiple friends in South Carolina aided him through personal tragedies.
Biden called King one of his political heroes Sunday after a service that included a video dedicated to the civil rights activist and preacher.
He also called the Black church “the spiritual home of the Black experience.” Biden said.
“That’s a truth we honor,” he said.
State Sen. Deon Tedder, D-Charleston, a member of Royal Missionary, emphasized Biden’s importance to the Black community.
“You will always be known to us as one of America’s most consequential presidents,” said Tedder, who won a special election in November 2023 after his predecessor, Marlon Kimpson, joined the Biden administration.
At multiple points in his speech, applause erupted through the crowd and a booming “thank you” was heard at one point.
The president said his father called abuse of power the greatest sin. The essence of the Bible, he said, is that all people are created equally and deserve to be treated equally.
“We never fully lived up to that commitment, but never fully walked away from it either because of you and your ancestors before us,” Biden said.
Biden said that “we pledge allegiance not just to an idea but to each other.”
“That’s how I viewed my decision to issue more individual pardons than any pardons than any president in American history. … To show mercy to those who served a significant amount of time,” he said.
Biden closed his message by again thanking the people of South Carolina, saying being their president “was the greatest honor of my life.”
And to a resounding applause, the 46th president said, “I’m not going anywhere.”
Museum
During his speech at the International African American Museum, Biden called slavery “America’s original sin.”
The museum sits on Gadsden’s Wharf, the arrival point for more than 100,000 slaves in the 1700s and 1800s.
“This museum is so important. It embodies the trauma and the triumph of the African American experience,” Biden said, “and embodies the truth that Black history is America history.”
The president also said Martin Luther King “had a deep influence” on him when he was young.
As he spoke to the predominantly Black crowd, Biden said he was honored to serve alongside Barack Obama, the first Black president and Kamala Harris, the first Black vice president.
Biden boasted the appointments of Lloyd Austin, the first Black defense secretary, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman to be on the Supreme Court.
“Together we kept our commitment to have an administration that looks like America,” he said.
After the crowd cheered at Brown Jackson’s appointment, Biden said “she’s smarter than them too.”
The moment drew laughter from the crowd. It was a laugh line borrowed from his own speech a year ago at the state Democratic Party’s “First-in-the-Nation Celebration” fundraising dinner ahead of the primary.
Biden closed his speech with a thank you to the nation and a passage from the Bible.
“I have been young and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken,” Biden said, quoting a passage from Psalm chapter 37.
Moments later, Biden said what could be his final public words as president.
“May God keep the faith and may God bless his soul this sacred place,” said Biden. “God Bless America.”