michael barbaro

From The New York Times, I’m Michael Barbaro. This is “The Daily.” Today: In the Democratic race for president, Joe Biden is being asked to confront a record on race that some in his party now see as outdated and unjust. Astead Herndon on the policies Biden embraced and how they were viewed when he embraced them. It’s Wednesday, July 3.

archived recording (kamala harris) I do not believe you are a racist. And I agree with you when you commit yourself to the importance of finding common ground. But I also believe — and it’s personal. And I was actually very — it was hurtful to hear you talk about the reputations of two United States senators who built their reputations and career on the segregation of race in this country. And it was not only that, but you also worked with them to oppose busing. And there was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools. And she was bused to school every day. And that little girl was me. So I will tell you that on this subject, it cannot be an intellectual debate among Democrats. We have to take it seriously. We have to act swiftly.

michael barbaro

Astead, to the average American watching the debates last week, what do you think that this now famous confrontation between Joe Biden and Kamala Harris seemed to be about?

astead herndon

On its most literal level, it was two top-tier Democrats having the most confrontational, direct moment we’ve seen in the primary so far.

archived recording (joe biden) If we want to have this campaign litigated on who supports civil rights and whether I did or not, I’m happy to do that. I was a public defender. I didn’t become a prosecutor. I came out, and I left a good law firm to become a public defender, when, in fact — [APPLAUSE] — when, in fact, my city was in flames because of the assassination of Dr. King.

astead herndon

But in the bigger, more abstract view, these were two different generations of Democrats. One, a barrier-breaking, younger black senator, pushing the old guard, the senator who came in the 1970s, who had relationships with segregationists and avowed racists. She was pushing him on racial issues and trying to hold him accountable for how the Democratic Party has handled issues of race for decades leading up to this point.

michael barbaro

But it also felt like this was about the details of a specific policy that Biden was a part of. And most of us probably don’t really understand what his intentions were or what the context of that policy was. So take us back to that time. Where was Joe Biden in his political career?

astead herndon

Well, Joe Biden began as a lawyer in Wilmington and, eventually, a city councilor in the county. And he was emerging at a really racially contentious time within the city and state.

archived recording In April, after the murder of Martin Luther King, the National Guard was called out in several cities to put down riots. One of these cities was Wilmington, Delaware. But now, in Wilmington, the National Guard is still on duty. And the governor, Charles Terry, has no plan to send it back.

astead herndon

And Joe Biden runs for Senate in 1971 as a new type of Democrat —

archived recording (joe biden) I’m Joe Biden, and I’m a candidate for the United States Senate.

astead herndon

— a Democrat who understands black communities and has personal and deep relationships in those communities, but as a Democrat who can also unite the kind of outer portions of the state, which saw those issues very differently.

archived recording (joe biden) Politicians have done such a job on the people that the people don’t believe them anymore. And I’d like a shot at changing that.

astead herndon

Joe Biden himself tells a story about how he was the only lifeguard at a newly integrated pool in Wilmington.

archived recording (joe biden) I applied to the city of Wilmington for a job, and I was the only white employee here. And I learned so much. And I realized that I live in a neighborhood where I could turn on the television, and I’d see and listen to Dr. King and others. But I didn’t know any black people. No, I really didn’t. You didn’t know any white people either. That’s the truth.

astead herndon

It was part of his identity and part of his brand that he cared about civil rights, understood the plight of African-Americans in Wilmington, but also, he understood that kind of outer white Delaware was really motivated around grievance at the time. In 1971, a group of black students had filed a lawsuit in hopes to get the schools to further desegregate. And so the question of school segregation and school integration was very much on the forefront of the state’s politics. And at the exact same time, that’s when the young Joe Biden makes his way to Capitol Hill.

michael barbaro

And what was Biden’s position when it came to desegregation?

archived recording (joe biden) Where the court has concluded that a school district, a state, or a particular area has intentionally attempted to prevent black, or any group of people, from attending a school, the court should and must declare that to be unconstitutional and thereby move from there to impose a remedy to correct the situation.

astead herndon

Joe Biden takes the position, as many other politicians did at that time, that they were not opposed to the idea of integration. What they’re opposed to was the remedy.

archived recording (joe biden) I have argued that the least effective remedy to be imposed is the busing remedy.

astead herndon

You get a court order in the late ‘70s that says that Delaware schools are too racially segregated, and they must form a plan for racial integration. And a plan is instituted by the courts that says, from the city in Wilmington, which is majority black, and the suburbs outside of it, that both those groups of students were for some portion of their schooling going to have to bus to the opposite community. So for the kind of inner city students, which are majority black, they were going to have to go out to the suburbs for six years. And the outer suburbs would have to come into Wilmington schools for about three years. So this becomes the plan that’s put in place that inflames those racial tensions on both sides of the state.

michael barbaro

And what is Biden’s opposition to that specific solution?

astead herndon

That the idea of integration was not a problem, but it was how the courts were forcing them to go about it. You have to think — if you were a parent in the suburbs, which is almost exclusively white, who had made that choice for your family almost entirely around the school district that your child was supposed to go into. And then there is a court order that comes down that says not only are different people coming to that school, but that your child is going to be put on a bus to a different school. That is the logic that those parents used to oppose the idea of busing. And so at one point in 1975, Joe Biden says, the real problem with busing is you take people who aren’t racist, people who are good citizens, who believe in equal education and opportunity, and you stunt their children’s intellectual growth by busing them to an inferior school. And you’re going to fill them with hatred.

michael barbaro

So Biden is sympathizing with white parents in the suburbs who are suddenly feeling dislocated by this decision. But what about black parents in this city whose children would be bused to these theoretically better schools in the suburbs? What is Biden saying to them?

astead herndon

This is an important point. Although the kind of white suburbs were almost uniformly against busing, somewhat because of the method and sometimes because of pure racism, in black communities, particularly in Wilmington, there is not universal agreement on this issue. There is universal consensus that integration is important and that their schools had not been adequately funded or not been adequately supported by the state. But when you look at polling and when you talk to people at the time, the actual issue of busing is controversial. Remember, these parents themselves had to send their children further away into neighborhoods and communities that may have not always been welcoming to those students. So it wasn’t universally loved. In one poll, about 40 percent of black parents supported the idea, 40 percent were against it, around 20% were unsure. Joe Biden tries to take a nuanced position, where sometimes it seems like he is a vocal opponent of the idea of busing and that he is signaling to the kind of white Delaware that he is their advocate.

archived recording (joe biden) And on the issue that the argument is about — and that is whether or not busing is, A, required constitutionally, and B, has a utilitarian value for desegregation — I come down on the side of A, it is not constitutionally required, and B, it is not a useful tool.

astead herndon

But there’s other times when he sounds very much like many of the black leaders in Wilmington who say, I don’t know if I like this remedy, but I do know that the issue of integration is really important. So he’s kind of firmly in the middle. And that kind of middle ground is something we see him stake on a number of issues, most notably crime, where he takes the kind of position and relies on those personal relationships with black communities, while, according to his critics, legislating in the interest of white ones.

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michael barbaro

We’ll be right back. So Joe Biden takes the middle ground, or the middle ground for that time, on busing. How do we then see that in his approach to crime?

astead herndon

This one’s a little different, because while Biden on busing was seen as kind of emblematic of the larger Democratic stance, with crime, he was really kind of pushing the boundaries. At that time, particularly in the ‘80s and ‘90s, was a kind of moral panic happening throughout the country —

archived recording Crack, the most addictive form of cocaine, is now sweeping New York.

astead herndon

— around the explosion of drugs in cities —

archived recording It’s going nationwide, especially among the young, a drug so pure and so strong, it might just as well be called crack of doom.

astead herndon

— and the violent crime that often associated and came with them.

archived recording It’s the devil — see, this cocaine ain’t nothing but the devil, and the devil was telling me to do it.

astead herndon

And Biden, as someone who had come up in Wilmington, a community that was experiencing these things closely, he had black community leaders, neighbors of his, saying the issue was very important, but that they were looking at kind of root cause problems of why crime was happening. They were talking about issues like education or job opportunities and the like. When the outer Wilmington and the kind of all-white suburbs, you were hearing a more vocal cry for increasing cops, increasing prisons, and really cracking down on those tough-on-crime measures that came to the cities. So again, Biden is caught between political problem, but also one that’s divided pretty clearly on racial lines.

michael barbaro

And so what does he do?

archived recording The truth is every major crime bill since 1976 that’s come out of this Congress has had the name of the Democratic senator from the state of Delaware, Joe Biden, on that bill.

astead herndon

There’s this split screen of Joe Biden that you often hear about when you talk to people in Wilmington. There is the neighbor who would go to black churches, would know the kind of leaders by name, and the issues they were advocating for. But then in Washington, you have a Joe Biden that is using those stories of Wilmington to kind of pass more tough-on-crime measures that some in that community say they weren’t asking for. In 1977, he first proposes mandatory minimums for drug sentences. And through the ‘80s, in his connection with Strom Thurmond, they end up passing a really kind of significant set of bills.

archived recording (joe biden) Not enough prosecutors to convict them, not enough judges to sentence them, and not enough prison cells to put them away for a long time.

astead herndon

In 1984, that establishes mandatory minimums. In ‘86, the Anti-Drug Abuse Act creates harsher sentences for crack than powder cocaine. And it kind of builds up into the early ‘90s, when Bill Clinton is elected president, the ‘94 bill —

archived recording (bill clinton) Thank you, Mr. Vice President, for your introduction and for your labors on this bill.

astead herndon

— the “three strikes and you’re out” kind of policy —

archived recording (bill clinton) “Three strikes and you’re out” will be the law of the land.

astead herndon

— where, if you had three instances of drug offenses or violent drug offenses, it would be an instant life sentence.

archived recording (bill clinton) We have the tools now. Let us get about the business of using them.

michael barbaro

And what do we understand about how the black community back in Delaware felt about these tough crime measures at the time?

astead herndon

Joe Biden talks about, to this day, in his presidential campaign, they make a big point to say that the Congressional Black Caucus overwhelmingly voted for the bill and that black leaders at the time were very supportive of the bill. That is partly true. The Congressional Black Caucus certainly backed the bill after showing some initial wariness. The majority of its members voted for it. There were some vocal black mayors who were calling for these particular measures. But there were also some who were against it.

archived recording (jesse jackson) This ill-conceived bill, fed by a media frenzy over crime, was on the fast track to the president’s desk for signature by Christmas.

astead herndon

Jesse Jackson spoke out against it.

archived recording (jesse jackson) Spending several billion dollars on prisons and longer sentences is not the answer to reducing crime.

astead herndon

The head of the Congressional Black Caucus spoke out against it. Representatives like Bobby Scott said they knew that the kind of increase of police in these neighborhoods would cause detrimental effects.

michael barbaro

Right. So what turns out to be, over time, the actual impact of all of these bills, including the biggest of them all, that 1994 crime bill, in the years that followed?

astead herndon

The undeniable impact is an explosion of America’s prison population that has disproportionately affected black and brown communities. So coming out of the ‘80s and ‘90s, you have a pretty clear articulation from then-Senator Biden that cops and the expansion of cops is a preventative measure.

archived recording (joe biden) In a nutshell, the president’s plan doesn’t include enough police officers to catch the violent thugs.

astead herndon

He felt that the kind of presence of police officers, the increased presence of police officers in these communities, would inherently mean that crime would go down. As the years have gone on, it has become clear that the actual effect was not that, but was the disruption of the communities themselves. When I was in Wilmington talking to folks there, they were saying by 1994, it was already clear that the tough-on-crime kind of measures of the ‘80s weren’t working on the streets. It was not decreasing crime, but more importantly, it was causing a kind of incarceration effect that didn’t have the terminology for mass incarceration that we now call it, but it was clear that communities were getting ruptured by the increase in sentences and the increased focus on tough-on-crime measures.

michael barbaro

And of course, the legacy of busing is that we’ve seen a resegregation of the U.S. school system, because the job was never really done.

astead herndon

Exactly. There is a narrative that busing failed, but the truth is kind of murkier. Busing, as a policy, often did achieve its goals and racially integrate the places it was instituted. What failed was the political will to keep those measures in place that made integration happen and to see racial integration of schools as a necessary problem to solve. So in the last decades, you have not only overturned to pre-busing segregation levels, but in some places, you have racial segregation in schools becoming even worse than they were, or just as bad as they were, at the time of Brown v. Board of Education.

michael barbaro

So Astead, it seems like what we’re seeing in the debate last week, in this exchange between Harris and Biden, was that Biden is going to have to confront these past policies as their legacies are understood in the current moment. And that means complicated legacies with real implications, many of them quite negative for the black community.

astead herndon

Joe Biden is being — his whole record is being examined in new ways. He’s run for president twice before, but never as a front-runner and never as someone who enjoys this amount of support among black communities. Remember, this is still the vice president to the first black president. This is still the person who is seen, oftentimes, as the most likely to beat President Trump in the Democratic Party, which black communities have often seen as their number one goal. So he’s enjoying this kind of support, robust support, among black communities, while at the same time, his rivals are trying to use his record, particularly on busing and crime, to wrest away those votes. And I think that’s a really interesting question, is will these moments, like the one Senator Harris made happen in the debate, will they start to chip away at that image of him as a champion and an advocate for black communities? As people come to understand the record and as people come to understand the context of Delaware at the time, will he be seen as someone who was navigating a difficult racial terrain or as someone who kept black people close, but fundamentally legislated in the interests of white communities?

michael barbaro

And so the question is, will voters evaluate him for what he was trying to accomplish in the ‘70s, and the ‘80s, and the ‘90s, or for what we now understand the impact of those bills to have been up through today? I wonder if you have any sense of how black voters are seeing that from your reporting.

astead herndon

I spent a lot of time in South Carolina, where we have the biggest population of black voters in the early states. And Joe Biden enjoys a large amount of goodwill in those places. What that is not is a deep connection to Joe Biden as an individual. As I heard someone say recently, his support is wide, but it’s thin. I think that people vote on a lot of different levels. Voting based on policy and record is one of them. Voting based on emotion, and feeling, and connection is another. And I think in this era for Democrats, and particularly for black Democrats who feel as if Trump has brought in a new era of white identity politics, there’s voting based on fear. And what you hear in South Carolina is not that they want to vote for Joe Biden because they believe in the things that he has done. But they see him as kind of an emergency fix to a much worse problem for them, which they believe is the presidency of Donald Trump.

michael barbaro

Astead, is what you’re saying the black voters may be more inclined to go with a safe choice, because in their mind, in this racial climate and in this political climate, the alternative, which is not winning the presidency, is far more threatening than a Democratic candidate with a debatable historical record on race?

astead herndon

Yep. And I think it’s important to make distinctions when we talk about black voters. We particularly see that kind of calculation among older black voters and black voters who are in the South. Now among younger voters, we see a bigger willingness to reject Joe Biden because of some of those records and to embrace candidates who are talking more explicitly and openly about structural changes to create racial equity. But among the older voters, who remain the real heart and soul of the black vote and a sizable portion of the Democratic electorate, it’s that calculation of safety that’s really helping Joe Biden right now. But we should also say that among those older voters, many of them can remember 1994 and remember the 1980s and may have themselves supported these bills and seen their thinking change as well. And I think that’s the important thing to not forget, is just as Joe Biden has evolved, so have many of these people. And I’ve talked to people who don’t see what he did as particularly invalidating, frankly, because they have experienced that same evolution. And sometimes, I have talked to people who said that ‘94 crime bill ruined their homes, and they also say they can’t wait to vote for Joe Biden in the primary.

archived recording (joe biden) Before I start, I’d like to say something about the debate we had last night. And I heard, and I listened to, and I respect Senator Harris. But we all know that 30 seconds to 60 seconds on a campaign debate exchange can’t do justice to a lifetime committed to civil rights.

michael barbaro

Well, so Astead, what do you make of how defensive Biden has been to these criticisms and these questions about his legacy, rather than acknowledging, a lot has changed since then. I was doing what I thought was best in the moment. I now see, I now understand that it played out differently than I expected.

astead herndon

This is a question I’ve thought a lot about. If by the early 1990s, it was clear to the cops on the ground in Wilmington that the tough-on-crime measures didn’t work, that the disparities that were created in the ‘80s between crack and cocaine were disproportionately hurting black communities, why did it take until this year for Joe Biden to acknowledge it himself? And we don’t have clear answers to that.

archived recording (joe biden) I haven’t always been right. I know we haven’t always gotten things right. But I’ve always tried.

astead herndon

We know that Joe Biden very rarely apologizes. But it was not until this year that you really have an articulation from Vice President Biden that he played a role as a senator in creating some of these disparities.

archived recording (joe biden) That Barack and I finally reduced the disparity in sentencing, which we had been fighting to eliminate, in crack cocaine versus powder cocaine. It was a big mistake when it was made. We thought we were told by the experts that, crack, you never go back. It was somehow fundamentally different. It’s not different. But it’s trapped an entire generation.

michael barbaro

Do you think it’s possible that he might fear that if he apologizes, that that might weaken him more with moderate voters who don’t feel that Americans should have to apologize for that period, for those instincts, and for those policies?

astead herndon

I think that’s a big possibility. I also think Joe Biden was acting in what he believes was good faith, even at that moment, and what he thinks was the evidence in front of him and the context of the time. I think it’s important to always go back to Delaware with him. And in the moment that he comes up in, it is part of his personal and political identity that he was an advocate for the black communities and that he was performing a new role and, frankly, public service to those communities that white politicians had not done in that state. And so I think it’s bigger than just the political realities of right now and what apologizing would mean. To apologize would go to the heart of what his identity has been since he got in public office in the 1970s.

michael barbaro

Mm-hmm. And he’s just not willing to apologize for that. Because in fact, he’s still proud of it.

astead herndon

The evidence in front of us tells us that’s true. He was praising the crime bill just years ago. And he has called it, at some points, his greatest accomplishment. And he has shown a real resistance to the many opportunities that activists and other rivals have given him to say that those actions were a mistake.

[music]

michael barbaro

Astead, thank you very much. We appreciate it.

astead herndon

Thanks for having me.

michael barbaro