Biden's 1st public engagement since ending reelection bid: Civil rights commemoration in Austin

AUSTIN – A place holding history will host a newsworthy guest on Monday.

President Joe Biden will be in Austin on Monday afternoon to honor the 1964 Civil Rights Act signing.

Security will be tight at the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library and Museum. The details of the program are in place for the President's arrival.

"Of course, the president's address will be the centerpiece, but we have a couple of musical performances planned and a couple of readings," Mark Lawrence said.

Lawrence is the director of the LBJ presidential facility. The program will include an excerpt from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech. He also said actor Bryan Cranston would read LBJ's 1965 voting rights speech.

Johnson signed the act on July 2, 1964. Lawrence described the bill as transformative.

"It was proposed more than one year ago by our late and beloved president John F. Kennedy," Johnson said in a speech before the signing.

He imagines Biden will speak to the triumphs of legislation that impacted all Americans, but he thinks the president won't gloss over the challenges that still exist.

Lawrence realizes people will also come to examine the president after he shut down his reelection run due to members of the Democratic Party concerned about a head-to-head with former President Donald Trump.

"Everyone, of course, wants to see him in action, wants to hear what he has to say about his decision-making," Lawrence said. "How he sees politics unfolding over the months to come between now and November."

Biden's departure from the campaign trail drew comparison to LBJ, who chose not to run for a second term. Johnson's speech on March 31, 1968, was a stunning piece of history.

"I shall not seek, and I will not accept the nomination of my party for another term as your president," Johnson said in the speech.

Lawrence said Biden and Johnson's speeches are similar but very different. He noted LBJ wanted to focus on the presidency because of the Vietnam War and racial unrest. Biden's speech, according to Lawrence, was about passing the torch.

"Our assumption, I think, as a society is that when you're elected president, the gold standard is two terms, and anything short of that is failure," Lawrence said.

The U.S. Constitution and the Emancipation Proclamation are among the nation's most revered documents, and Lawrence believes the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 are also among the most revered.

Biden will visit Texas to celebrate the document prohibiting discrimination based on race, sex, color, religion, and employment.