Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has officially become the first Syracuse University graduate to lead a major party in a presidential race.
The former vice president formally accepted the Democratic nomination Thursday in the closing night of the 2020 Democratic National Convention, setting up a fierce election showdown with President Donald Trump in November.
“Give people light,” Biden said, quoting civil rights leader Ella Baker. “The current president has cloaked America in darkness for much too long. Too much anger. Too much fear. Too much division.
“Here and now, I give you my word: If you entrust me with the presidency, I will draw on the best of us not the worst. I will be an ally of the light not of the darkness. It’s time for us, for We the People, to come together.”
If he wins, Biden will be the first Syracuse University alumnus to hold the nation’s highest office.
Biden, a 1968 graduate of SU’s College of Law, has a long history of ties to Syracuse and Central New York. Biden married his first wife Neilia Hunter, an Auburn, N.Y., native and a Syracuse University homecoming queen, in 1966; the couple lived on Stinard Avenue in Syracuse while Biden attended SU’s law school and she taught at the old Bellevue Heights School in the city.
Neilia and the couple’s infant daughter, Naomi, would later die in an automobile accident in Delaware.
Biden maintained his ties to Syracuse throughout his political career as he served 36 years as a U.S. senator from Delaware and two terms as VP under President Barack Obama. He returned to visit his late wife’s family or Syracuse University dozens of times, gave commencement addresses and other speeches five times at SU, and his late son Beau Biden also graduated from Syracuse’s law school.
In 2009, Biden explained his love of Syracuse University when he invited the national champion SU lacrosse team to the White House for a private reception.
“The reason why I love that school so much is because I’ve never, ever been part of an institution that has been as loyal to me as they have,” an emotional Biden said.
The university stood by his side, he said, when he was accused during his 1988 presidential campaign of cheating on a law school paper. He dropped out of the race. He offered his political comeback as a lesson for the team.
While serving as vice president, Biden came to Syracuse for the 2012 funeral of one of his closest friends, John D. Covino, a law school buddy from Manlius. He also visited SU in 2015 to launch the “It’s on Us” campaign, a White House initiative to combat sexual assault on college campuses, and spoke at the law school’s convocation in 2016.
Vice President Joe Biden takes selfies with the Syracuse student section before the Syracuse/North Carolina semifinal game in Houston Saturday, April 2, 2016. Lauren Long | llong@syracuse.com
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