“Not since those tumultuous days in 1960s has this fight been so existential to who we are as a nation, with marginalized groups so dramatically under attack,” said Biden, who spoke before being presented with the organization’s C. Francis Stradford Award, named for a co-founder of the historically Black legal association.

“My friends, we need to face the hard truth of this administration, and that it has been to ease all the gains we’ve made in my administration,” Biden continued. “To erase history rather than making it. To erase fairness, equality, to erase justice itself. And that’s not hyperbole. That’s a fact.”

“Get ready folks, this is just starting,” he added.

Raising his voice, Biden said, “Folks, in all our lives, the life of our nation, there are moments so stark that they divide all that came before from everything that followed, moments that forced us to confront hard truths about ourselves, our institutions, and democracy itself.”

“We are, in my view, at such a moment in American history, reflected in every cruel executive outreach, every rollback of basic freedoms, every erosion of long-standing, established precedent,” he said.

Biden also cast himself as a long-time ally of the civil rights movement, touting how his administration appointed more Black women to U.S. courts of appeals “than every other president in American history combined.”

He called for resistance against the Trump administration, especially emphasizing the role of the courts.

“Judges matter, courts matter, the law matters and the Constitution matters. I think a lot of Americans are starting to realize that under the pressure under now with this guy we have as president,” he said.

He also took jabs at Congress and the Supreme Court, saying, “they’re doing it all too often with the help of a Congress that is just sitting on the sidelines and enabled by the highest court in the nation. The rulings they’ve made, my god.”

“He seems to be doing his best to dismantle the Constitution,” he went on. “These are dark days, but you’re all here for the same reason I left that prestigious law firm to go to the defender’s office years ago. It’s because our future is literally on the line and we must be unapologetic of fighting for the future.”

The former president’s speech was free of major gaffes, though he slurred and stumbled over his words at several points.

At one point in the speech he joked, “When I was elected, I had the dubious distinction to be elected the youngest senator in American history and the oldest president in American history. It’s hell turning 40 twice.”

Among the featured speakers were a host of high-profile Black lawyers, including far-left Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford, Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, MSNBC pundit Joy-Ann Reid and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

At one point in the speech he joked, “When I was elected, I had the dubious distinction to be elected the youngest senator in American history and the oldest president in American history. It’s hell turning 40 twice.”

“President Biden’s life and leadership reflect an unwavering commitment to the rule of law and the promise of justice for all,” National Bar Association President Wiley Adams said in a statement.

“[I]t is not only historic but also deeply meaningful to have the 46th President of the United States join us in honoring the transformative power of the law—and the enduring fight to protect our democracy,” he said.

The former president’s address comes two months after his son Hunter agreed to a voluntary disbarment stemming from drug use and alleged gun law violations.

The president took the stage the same month his son made waves in the public eye.

Earlier in July, Hunter Biden sat for a marathon interview from the Delaware Valley, in which he attacked President Donald Trump and many top Democratic figures, including David Axelrod, and spoke about his former addiction to crack cocaine.

In a case that occurred in the same area where the interview took place, a gun registered to Hunter Biden had been found in a dumpster a short distance from the A.I. duPont school in Greenville, Delaware.

Hallie Biden, widow of former Delaware Attorney General Joseph Beau Biden III and then-girlfriend of Hunter Biden, discovered the gun in her boyfriend’s possession and disposed of it there.