Either Sleepy Joe is having another mental lapse or he’s completely lying about attending a black church as a teen in order to pander to black voters today. Members of a Delaware church are disputing a claim from the Democratic presidential nominee that he was “raised in the black church,” and in particular, their house of worship.
Ole’ Joe is known for telling whoppers, misremembering important details, plagiarizing political language and appearing to embellish his political and street credentials, made a claim in Iowa early this year that his entire “political identity” was molded by relationships with minorities from his youth during the civil rights movement.
“I have a lot of black support because that’s where I come from. I was raised in the black church, politically, not a joke,” Biden said in Des Moines in January, The Des Moines Register reported.
“When I got into politics, I was the only white guy working on the east side, in the projects, because these were the guys I grew up with. These were the guys I worked with,” Biden also said at the event, according to The Washington Examiner.
“People ask why do I have such overwhelming support from the African American community, because that’s what I’m part from … That’s where my political identity comes from. It’s the single most consistent political constituency I’ve ever had.”
“That’s what got me involved in politics to begin with: The Civil Rights movement,” he said.
Biden had made an almost identical claim in June of 2019, according to Julia Terruso with The Philadelphia Inquirer.
The problem is long-time members of the black church Sleepy Joe claims to have attended back in the 60’s have no recollection of him attending.
The Washington Free Beacon identified the church as the Union Baptist Church in Wilmington, where Biden also said in Des Moines, “We would go sit in Rev. Herring’s church, sit there before we’d go out, and try to change things when I was a kid in college and in high school.”
A woman named Phyllis Drummond attended the church for nearly four decades, and told The Beacon that while she was not part of the church during the civil rights movement, she doesn’t think Biden was either.
“No. Not at our building. I think he was probably in Claymont, [Del.,] [or] in Pennsylvania then,” she told the outlet.
According to accounts from the Union Baptist Church members, King, and even Biden himself, his claim about being “raised in the black church” is pure fiction.
Another church member named Juanita Matthew also told the outlet she is not aware of Biden being affiliated with her church during the time when he said he was “raised” there.
Matthew disclosed that Biden did have a connection to the church, and did have a relationship with Herring, but that the connection was established long after Biden was already an adult — when Biden’s political ambitions were likely brewing.
While it may be that Biden did have a relationship to the Union Baptist Church, there is no evidence that it came when the Democrat was being raised.
Biden, born in 1942, turned 18 in the fall of 1960.
Rev. Herring did not take the reins of the church until 1962, when Biden would have been 19 or 20.
Classy, Joe, using the church for your political gain.