Read Joe Biden's Response To President Trump On Charlottesville

Vice President Joe Biden, who has not been shy in the past for calling out President Donald Trump, addressed the violence that broke out in Charlottesville this month, saying that while the history of race in America has been long been shadowed by a trail of violence and hate, today there is a special challenge in fighting this battle, and that battle has to do with the current president.

"Today we have an American president who has publicly proclaimed a moral equivalency between neo-Nazis and Klansmen and those who would oppose their venom and hate," Biden wrote in an essay for The Atlantic.

The former vice president recalled the time he stood waiting for the first African- American president of the United States in January 2009. As he stood waiting for Barack Obama in Wilmington, Delaware, to join him on the way to the inauguration, Biden thought back to 1968, when violence erupted in the city on the news of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination.

He described what the country, and the world, saw in Charlottesville, "crazed, angry faces illuminated by torches."

"The neo-Nazis, Klansmen, and white supremacists emerging from dark rooms and remote fields and the anonymity of the web into the bright light of day on the streets of a historically significant American city," Biden wrote. "If it wasn’t clear before, it’s clear now: We are living through a battle for the soul of this nation."

Biden was blunt in his message that Trump has "emboldened white supremacists with messages of comfort and support."

On the day of the violence, Trump addressed the nation and said that the violence was the fault of "many sides." After being criticized on his response, Trump addressed the country again two days later, singling out white supremacists, neo-Nazis and the KKK for their ideology only to later once again say at a rather unscripted news conference that there were "many fine people" on both sides of the protests. A 32-year-old woman, Heather Heyer, who was at the protest to stand up to hate, was killed when a neo-Nazi allegedly drove a car into a crowd of protesters. Dozens others were injured.

Biden said it was the job of American citizens to do what the president has not.

"We have to uphold America’s values," Biden wrote. "We have to do what he will not. We have to defend our Constitution. We have to remember our kids are watching. We have to show the world America is still a beacon of light."

>>>Read Biden's full essay in The Atlantic.

Also See: Charlottesville Takes Action To Help Mend The City After Deadly Rally

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