ATLANTA — Civil rights leaders urged President Joe Biden to pick Atlanta to host the Democratic National Convention, arguing that selecting the city for the party’s premier event would honor both its historic legacy and the Black-owned businesses who call the region home.
In a pair of letters released Saturday, the family of the late U.S. Rep. John Lewis, the daughter of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and other foundational figures in the movement for racial equality pressed Biden to choose Atlanta for the political showcase.
The letters coincided with Biden’s plan to travel to Selma, Alabama, to mark the 58th anniversary of “Bloody Sunday,” the day in 1965 that white law enforcement officers beat Lewis and other civil rights marchers as they attempted to march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
