DETROIT — During his keynote address at the Detroit Branch NAACP’s 60th Annual Fight For Freedom Fund Dinner Sunday, May 3 at the Cobo Conference Center, Vice President Biden discussed Detroit’s comeback. 

“Buses are moving … the streets are plowed, the trash is picked up. People … are back to work. You are coming back. You are coming back,” Biden said.

The vice president also discussed the recent clashes between police and African American men around the country. He said cops have a right to go home to see their family at the end of their shifts and, in turn, the people in the communities police serve have a right to be treated with dignity and respect.

“The only way that will happen is if we see each other, and that only happens when we get to know one another,” Biden said. 

During the event, Detroit Branch NAACP President Rev. Wendell Anthony thanked Biden for his support of Israel. Many at the dinner thought Anthony’s praise of the vice president’s support for Israel was irrelevant and unnecessary. 

“As many may recall, our first speaker was the Honorable Justice Thurgood Marshall,” Anthony said. “It is historically inspiring that 60 years later a tradition of excellence and outstanding achievement in the cause of freedom and justice will be continued by our vice president.” 

Anthony also discussed the deaths of African American men that involved police, including Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO, Tamir Rice in Cleveland and Freddie Gray in Baltimore. 

The theme for this year’s dinner, “Celebrating Freedom: Measured by Practice, Treasured by Sacrifice,” paid homage to 50 years since the historic march in Selma (Bloody Sunday) that paved the way for the signing of the Voting Rights Acts of 1965.

This year’s special awardees were Rep.  John Conyers, Jr. (D-Detroit), who received the James Weldon Johnson Lifetime Achievement Award; attorney Benjamin Crump, who received the Ida B Wells Freedom and Justice Award; Kary Moss, executive director of the ACLU of Michigan, who received the Mary Church Terrell Freedom and Justice Award; Jessica Care Moore, artist, activist and creator of Black Women Rock, who received the Great Expectations Award; and Kevin Tolbert, executive director of UAW-Ford, National Programs Center, who received the Great Expectations Award.