Biden Announces "President’s Advisory Council on African Diaspora Engagement in the United States"

Story by Reuters*

U.S. PRESIDENT Joe Biden announced the establishment of an advisory council on engagement with the African diaspora in the United States, as Washington seeks to deepen ties with the region through the U.S.-Africa Summit.

"African voices are essential to solving global problems. To elevate these voices, one of our primary focuses is to widen our circle of engagement to include African Diaspora communities," Dana Banks , special assistant to the president and special adviser for the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, said.

It was not immediately clear who would be on the council but Banks said it would be made up of diverse representatives from African-American and African immigrant communities who have distinguished themselves in government, business, social work, sports and other areas.

"It will advise the President on a wide range of issues, enhance the dialogue between U.S. officials and the African Diaspora, and strengthen cultural, social, political, and economic ties between African communities, the global African Diaspora, and the United States," Banks said.

A spokesperson for the National Security Council said the African Diaspora includes African Americans, including descendants of enslaved Africans, and nearly 2 million African immigrants. Read the full executive order here.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/bidento-unveil-council-on-african-diaspora-in-unitedstates/ar-AA15d3XN you, when you invited me to your countries. I said, ‘Be careful what you wish for. Because I may show up.’”

*Dawn team applied edits to the origital article.

The president added: “I’m looking forward to see many of you in your home countries.” However, Biden did not say, which African nations he plans to visit, nor when he would make the trip.

First Lady, Jill Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will also visit Africa, the President, said, as well as Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken; Defence Secretary, Lloyd Austin; Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen and other officials.

“We’re all going to be seeing you and you’re going see a lot of us, because we’re deadly earnest and serious about this endeavour. And you’re going to see us deliver on our commitments.”

Former President Donald Trump was the first president since Ronald Reagan not to visit Africa. The last U.S. presidential trip to Africa came in

2013 when Barack Obama travelled to Senegal, South Africa and Tanzania.

The Biden administration, during the Summit, has worked to rebuild ties with African leaders after Trump never hosted a US-Africa Summit, which was started under Obama in 2014.

AU Chairman and President of Senegal, Macky Sall, expressed gratitude to Biden, and pleaded that economic sanctions that have crippled Zimbabwe’s economy should be rescinded.

“And with this summit, and with the African Unions Agenda 2063, our eyes are fixed squarely on the future. African voices, African leadership, African innovation all are critical to addressing the most pressing global challenges towards realising the vision we all share: a world that is free, a world that is open, prosperous, and secure.” https://guardian.ng/news/biden-invites-au-to-joing20-plans-visit-to-africa-in-2023/

The United States has yet to officially apologize for the enslavement of African Americans, and many scholars and activists have called for some form of reparations for decades.

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN this week commemorated the 160th anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, which ended slavery during the U.S. Civil War. The proclamation, issued on Jan. 1, 1863, is one of the nation’s most treasured documents for human freedom.

“On New Year’s Day, 160 years ago today, President Abraham Lincoln changed America’s destiny forever. We were at the height of a raging Civil War, ‘a house divided’ along the dangerous fault line of slavery,” said President Biden in an official White House statement released Monday evening.

With the Emancipation Proclamation, President Lincoln ended slavery in rebellious states that had seceded from the Union, thereby granting freedom to the enslaved in those states. The executive order also admitted newly “freed” Black men into the Army and Navy to fight for their freedom, or as the National Archives notes, “[enabled] the liberated to become liberators.”

In his statement, Biden praised President Lincoln, who “engaged in months of cautious deliberation,” adding, “His duty, he felt, was to do more than what he personally believed was morally right, but to represent the will of a fractured people.”