JOE BIDEN EMBRACED SEGREGATION IN 1975, CLAIMING IT WAS A MATTER OF ‘BLACK PRIDE:’

But 44 years ago, facing a backlash against busing from white voters, the future vice president voiced concerns not just about the policy of busing, which he had supported when first seeking election in 1972, but about the impact of desegregation on American society. He argued that segregation was good for blacks and was what they wanted.

“I think the concept of busing … that we are going to integrate people so that they all have the same access and they learn to grow up with one another and all the rest, is a rejection of the whole movement of black pride,” said Biden. Desegregation, he argued, was “a rejection of the entire black awareness concept, where black is beautiful, black culture should be studied; and the cultural awareness of the importance of their own identity, their own individuality.”

Questioning whether he might be a racist, Biden said he had asked “the blacks on my staff” whether he harbored something “in me that’s deep-seated that I don’t know.”