Biden plans Detroit visit to speak at NAACP dinner

WASHINGTON — Democratic President Joe Biden will return to Michigan this month to be the keynote speaker for the NAACP Detroit Branch's 69th annual Fight for Freedom Fund Dinner in Detroit.

The NAACP also will honor Biden with the James Weldon Johnson Lifetime Achievement Award, the Rev. Wendell Anthony, president of the NAACP Detroit Branch, announced at a Wednesday news conference. U.S. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., also will receive the organization's Presidential Award.

The announcement came ahead of former President Donald Trump's Wednesday night campaign rally in Freeland, about 14 miles northwest of Saginaw.

"We're about to go into a presidential election, and Rev. Anthony says it best: 'We need to take our souls to the polls,'" said Gary Torgow, a Detroit businessman on the boards of DTE Energy and Huntington Bank, who also serves as chairman for the NAACP dinner. "And that's what the NAACP stands for, more than anything."

The NAACP's annual dinner is scheduled for May 19 at Huntington Place, Detroit's riverfront convention center. It's a massive social gathering and among the region's largest sit-down dinners, hosting approximately 10,000 guests.

The NAACP will also honor Detroit residents including the Rev. Dr. Frederick Haynes III, of Friendship-West Baptist Church, and Khalilah Spencer, a partner with Honigman LLP, Anthony said. Haynes and Spencer will receive the William Monroe Trotter Freedom and Justice Award and the Ida B. Wells Freedom and Justice Award, respectively.

The NAACP's Great Expectations Award will go to Spain Elementary-Middle School, Renaissance High School and Alexa and Johnnie Turnage, founders of local networking organization Black Tech Saturdays.

Biden spoke at the dinner in 2015, heralding Detroit's comeback following municipal bankruptcy, saying it was on the road to economic recovery.

The event will be the Democratic president's third campaign trip to Michigan this year and his first since March 14 when he visited Saginaw, a Democratic stronghold within a bellwether Michigan county, greeting volunteers at a private home in the city's Cathedral District neighborhood before dining with a family at a golf course in Saginaw Township.

Biden was also in Michigan on Feb. 1 when he addressed a crowd of about 200 people at a United Auto Workers hall in Warren and courted Black voters at a sports bar in Harper Woods.

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