Former President Joe Biden returned with a signature gaffe when he recalled the first time he ever laid eyes on a group of “colored kids” in his first public remarks since leaving the White House this past January.
Biden, 82, used the outdated term while delivering a keynote speech at a conference in Chicago. The former president was telling an anecdote about his childhood move from Scranton, Pennsylvania to Wilmington, Delaware, which he credited as primary motivation for deciding to run for public office.
“I was only going in fourth grade,” the former president said as he recalled his mother driving him to Catholic school in Wilmington. “And I remember seeing kids going by, at the time called ‘colored kids,’ on a bus go by — they never turned right to go to Claymont High School.”
Biden claimed learning that black children could not attend public school with white students “sparked my sense of outrage as a kid.”
The 46th president served as the keynote speaker at the Advocates, Counselors, and Representatives for the Disabled (ACRD) conference in Chicago, which largely centered on Social Security.