“I did not walk in the shoes of generations of students who walked these grounds. But I walked other grounds. Because I’m so damn old, I was there as well. You think I’m kidding, man. It seems like yesterday the first time I got arrested.”
— President Biden, in remarks in Atlanta on voting rights, Jan. 11
It was just a throwaway line, made to laughter, in an important presidential speech. But here’s the president, saying he once had been arrested, during a section that recalled some of the heroes of the civil rights movement. He even suggested he had been arrested more than once, as he recalled it was the “first time” he had been arrested.
It’s certainly not the first time he’s said he’s been arrested. Previously, he has said he was arrested trying to see Nelson Mandela in South Africa (Four Pinocchios false) and for trying to enter an all-female dorm room at Ohio University (Partly False, according to USA Today). He has also suggested he was arrested for wandering onto the Senate floor as a “star-struck kid,” but most times he has indicated he was just given a warning.
But there’s no evidence we can find that Biden was ever arrested.
Biden’s comment in Atlanta appears to refer to a story he has told on at least five occasions, each time attributing it to his late mother. He says she reminded him of this incident during a family discussion in 2008 about whether he should accept Barack Obama’s offer to be Obama’s running mate. Biden’s mother, Catherine “Jean” Biden, died in 2010. Biden told this story many years later, “a true story,” as he put it, though with slight differences in each retelling.
A search of newspapers does turn up a protest in Carrcroft — but in 1959, not 1956 or 1957, when Biden was 13 or 14. Moreover, the protesters there were picketing the home of a real estate agent who had sold a home to a Black couple — in another neighborhood, Collins Park. That community was about nine miles from Biden’s home, and massive protests took place there.
The Wilmington Journal on a separate occasion mentioned an arrest of a teenager at Levering’s home during a protest but not under heroic circumstances described by Biden.
“A 17-year-old youth was charged with breach of the peace after allegedly swinging at a woman identified by state police as Mrs. Elizabeth MacGuiness of Castle Hills during the demonstration at Levering’s home,” the newspaper reported on Feb. 27, 1959. “After the arrest the boy was returned to the custody of his parents and will face action in Family Court, police said. The commotion caused by the young ‘outsider’ was the only one observed by police all evening.”
Biden was 16 at the time.
𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒑𝒓𝒊𝒎𝒂𝒓𝒚 𝒔𝒐𝒖𝒓𝒄𝒆 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒔𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒚 𝒊𝒔 𝑩𝒊𝒅𝒆𝒏 — 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒘𝒆’𝒗𝒆 𝒍𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒏𝒆𝒅 𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒚𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒉𝒆 𝒊𝒔 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒂𝒍𝒘𝒂𝒚𝒔 𝒂 𝒓𝒆𝒍𝒊𝒂𝒃𝒍𝒆 𝒔𝒐𝒖𝒓𝒄𝒆. He appears to be citing his mother to enhance his civil rights credentials — which we have noted he has exaggerated before — but too many elements do not add up to give this “arrest” more credibility than his previous claims of getting in trouble with the law.
There was a protest against a Black couple who had purchased a house in an all-White area, but it was a neighborhood many miles away from the Biden home. Biden instead appears to referring to a protest that took place outside the home of the real estate agent who was involved in the sale.
It’s possible that police might have taken the young Biden home from a dangerous situation — as he said twice — but that’s not an arrest. Moreover, one would think such a memorable incident would have made it into one of Biden’s memoirs. Instead, it’s not even mentioned in the book that specifically references the conversation with his mother about joining the ticket. Ordinarily, one would think such an important moment in a young man’s life would have merited an earlier recounting.
The president earns Four Pinocchios. If any new evidence turns up, we’re always willing to revisit this fact check.