Sign of a changing South: Raphael Warnock joins Senate
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Patrik Jonsson Staff writer
| Savannah, Ga.
The historic nature of the Rev. Raphael Warnock鈥檚 election victory this month, the first time that Georgia had elected a Black senator, made headlines across the nation.
It also got the attention of the children living in Kayton Homes, a weathered two-story brick housing project in Savannah, where Mr. Warnock, a Democrat, grew up, one of 12 children. Terriyonna Blige, an energetic Black tween, points to the balcony of an apartment where she says Mr. Warnock lived as a child. 鈥淗e won, right?鈥� says Terriyonna. 鈥淥ver 50%.鈥澨� 听听
Mr. Warnock鈥檚 win 鈥渟hows that it doesn鈥檛 matter where you come from, it only depends on where you鈥檙e going,鈥� says teenager Sharefe Morgan.
Why We Wrote This
Many have called Raphael Warnock鈥檚 historic victory a sign of the changing South. That includes children in Savannah鈥檚 Kayton Homes, where Mr. Warnock grew up. It 鈥渟hows that it doesn鈥檛 matter where you come from, it only depends on where you鈥檙e going,鈥� one says.
As the children understood, the elections of Mr. Warnock, a Baptist preacher, and fellow Democrat Jon Ossoff, a 30-something Jewish filmmaker, thrust Georgia into the limelight. Their come-from-behind runoff victories on Jan. 5 brought the Senate to a 50-50 split, with Vice President Kamala Harris casting tie-breaking votes and giving control to the Democrats. The next day, a mob of right-wing extremists incited by former President Donald Trump sought to subvert the voters鈥� will at the U.S. Capitol. The two new senators from Georgia were sworn in by Vice President Harris Wednesday, along with her replacement Sen. Alex Padilla of California.听
Usually clad in a light-colored button-down shirt and fashionable rimless glasses, Mr. Warnock comes off as a thoroughly urbane Georgian. During the campaign, he ran lighthearted ads preemptively debunking opposition attacks by insisting he doesn鈥檛 hate puppies. He ran as an unabashed liberal in a conservative state, embracing a social justice gospel that has anchored the Black church for over 200 years.
As demographic shifts, a pandemic, and a divisive presidency coalesced, the election victories in Georgia have revealed an American South where Black and Jewish politicians can win on their own unabashedly liberal terms, complicating the path forward for Republicans in a region once known as the Solid South. Those demographics bode ill for Republicans in this and other Southern states that are attracting hundreds of thousands of Black and white transplants who bring more progressive mindsets.听听
鈥淚t is a multiracial and progressive coalition that seems to be bolstered by African American voters and white liberals in and around Atlanta,鈥� says Jason Sokol, author of 鈥淭he Heavens Might Crack: The death and legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr.鈥�
That means Mr. Warnock 鈥渋s free to embrace his work on social justice and can actually win votes because of it rather than worrying about whether he鈥檚 going to lose white moderates because of it,鈥� he says.听听
A rebuke by Black voters
It鈥檚 been only 50-some years since passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1964, and Jim Crow is well within living memory. In his victory speech, Mr. Warnock thanked his mom, whose 鈥�82-year-old hands picked somebody else鈥檚 cotton鈥� and has now cast a vote for her son to be elected as U.S. senator.
While the overt terror tactics and legal framework of white supremacy has ended, last year鈥檚 murder of Ahmaud Arbery in Brunswick, Georgia, was likened by many here to a modern-day lynching. Three white men chased the young Black jogger down and killed him after presuming, falsely, that he had committed a crime in the neighborhood. The three men have been charged with murder and other felony charges. And on the day after the runoff votes, as Mr. Warnock鈥檚 supporters celebrated his triumph, a man carried a Confederate battle flag through the U.S. Capitol as part of the pro-Trump invasion.听听
Those memories and recent events inform Mr. Warnock鈥檚 victory, effectively a rebuke by Black voters to white nationalism.
Until now, the legacy of Georgia鈥檚 county-unit voting system, which overweighted rural votes before it was declared illegal, has kept the rolls of statewide constitutional offices populated by white Georgians. In the meantime, Black politicians have built power bases in Atlanta and other cities.听听
鈥淎 lot of folks are still around that remember a time when it wasn鈥檛 even taken seriously that a Black candidate could win statewide,鈥� says Charles Bullock III, an expert on Georgia politics at the University of Georgia, in Athens. 鈥淭here was this notion that Blacks can be competitive, but still pay a racial tax that gets assessed by the electorate. That鈥檚 no longer the situation here in Georgia.鈥�
The Trump factor
Before this month鈥檚 victories, Democrats had a 0-8 record in Georgia runoffs. Moreover, they had not won a statewide race since 2002 and hadn鈥檛 won a Senate seat since 1992, when Bill Clinton won the state鈥檚 electoral-college votes.
Together, all four candidates raised nearly half a billion dollars to fuel their campaigns, highlighting the national stakes to control the Senate.听听
One factor in these runoffs, that may not be repeated in future elections, is President Trump鈥檚 smearing of Georgia鈥檚 Republican election officials as 鈥渆nemies of the state鈥� for their refusal to overturn Mr. Biden鈥檚 legitimate win. That controversy emboldened Democrats 鈥� especially Black ones who voted in record numbers 鈥� and depressed the vote among white conservatives.
Take northwest Georgia鈥檚 14th Congressional District. In November, it elected Marjorie Taylor Greene, a QAnon conspiracist and fervent Trump supporter, as its House representative. Trump appeared in the district the night before the election. But 50,000 fewer voters turned out there on Jan. 5, even as Mr. Warnock and Mr. Ossoff ran up larger margins in urban counties compared with the general election.
The election results suggest that 鈥渢he Republican Party has hit its peak and is now seeing a very rapid decline in Georgia,鈥� says Mr. Bullock, author of 鈥淭he Rise and Fall of the Voting Rights Act.鈥� 鈥淭hey鈥檝e run out of white voters.鈥�
The Republican incumbent senators, Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, two of the richest lawmakers in Congress, largely gave up any appeals to Georgia鈥檚 diverse suburbs and tethered themselves fully to Mr. Trump and his rural base. They depicted Georgia as a firewall against socialism to 鈥渟ave America.鈥� Senator Loeffler鈥檚 campaign called Mr. Warnock a Marxist who had impugned America from the pulpit.
Her campaign showcased the Republican Party鈥檚 brand of racial insensitivity, says Emory University political scientist Andra Gillespie. 鈥淎ttacking Warnock鈥檚 faith in highly racialized terms only reinforced the idea that the Republican Party has a serious problem with race, which means it has a serious problem in the African American community,鈥� she says.
Faith as a shield听
While Republican candidates tried to make Mr. Warnock鈥檚 preaching a lightning rod, his faith may have proven a shield.
Mr. Warnock, the senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church, where Martin Luther King Jr. once preached, is part of a Black church tradition that finds meaning in bearing witness to a social gospel of light and righteousness. That tradition has given joy and hope to oppressed Americans, even while engaging in uncomfortable truth-telling about institutional inequalities.
Jesus, Mr. Warnock said in an interview nearly 20 years ago, 鈥渨as an extremist for love, truth, and goodness, and thereby rose above his environment. Perhaps the South, the nation, and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.鈥澨�
Born to two Pentecostal pastors, Mr. Warnock spent his formative years in Savannah. After graduating high school, he followed King鈥檚 example, earning a theology degree at Morehouse College, and then, taking over as senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in 2005. One of his parishioners was John Lewis, the late Democratic representative and civil rights icon.
Mr. Warnock was arrested during a protest in 2014 in support of expanding Medicaid in Georgia. Until last year he was the chair of the New Georgia Project, the voter registration organization founded by Stacey Abrams that many credit for boosting Black turnout at Georgia鈥檚 elections.听听
In winning the seat, he becomes the first popularly elected Black Democrat from a former Confederate state to hold a U.S. Senate seat. He is also the first African American politician to win election to the U.S. Senate on the strength of a majority-Black coalition.
Mr. Warnock took that unapologetic message to the voters this fall 鈥撎齛nd polled so strongly that he triggered a runoff. It resonated as winter came, says the Rev. Dwight Andrews of Atlanta.
鈥淭he social gospel movement of the late 19th century was about workers, giving workers a way to safety and education,鈥� says Mr. Andrews, senior minister at First Congregational Church in Atlanta. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not about Black and white. It鈥檚 about uplifting the least of these in the world. That means these messages go well beyond race ... but it has unfortunately been racialized.鈥�
His election, however, marked a breakthrough, Mr. Warnock argued in his acceptance speech.
鈥淭his is the reversal of the old Southern strategy that sought to divide people,鈥� he said. 鈥淚n this moment, we鈥檝e got to bring people together in order to do the hard work. And I look forward to doing that work.鈥澨�
