By Roger Caldwell
In early September 1868, two months after Georgia’s readmission to the Union, its state legislature expelled 30 of its Black representatives. The federal government interceded in 1870, two years after the attack on Black representatives, to make Georgia seat its Black representatives. Many thought this was a good policy for the government to take, but it was hardly a solution.
Black state legislators faced intimidation and violence, and by the early 1900s Georgia had stopped Blacks from participating in politics. They had succeeded in disenfranchising Black citizens in Georgia for almost half of a century. This is when Jim Crow was flourishing and Blacks were lynched on a regular basis.
In 1986, John Lewis was elected to Congress and this turned and stopped the disenfranchising of the Black vote in Georgia and around the country. Through all the violence, John Lewis almost getting beat to death, the Black church has remained steadfast and hopeful, with the preachers giving the message. When Blacks could not read because it was illegal, the preacher could read the bible.
W.E.B. Du Bois says, “The preacher is the most unique personality developed by the Negro on American soil. A man who found his function as the healer of the sick, the interpreter of the unknown, the comforter of the sorrowing, the supernatural avenger of wrong, and the one who rudely but picturesquely expressed the longing, disappointment, and resentment of a stolen and oppressed people.”
On Tuesday 12-6-2022, Democratic U.S. Senator. Raphael Warnock defeated Republican Herschel Walker in Georgia’s Senate runoff election. While the Senate majority had already been decided, the win gave the Democrats a 51-49 margin, and the chamber some breathing room.
Both men were Black, and relatively newcomers, but Senator Warnock out spent his opponent by 3 to 1, and did a great job getting the early vote out. There were 3.4 million Georgia voters who voted in the runoff election, and 1.8 million voted early. Rev. Warnock won by over 90,000 votes, but the Black voters never stopped dreaming and praying.
The race between Warnock and Walker was significant, because according to the Pew Research Center, between 2000 and 2019 nearly half of the state’s increase in eligible voters were Black. As of 2019, 33% of the state’s total electorate was Black, totaling 2.5 million voters. Blacks understand the importance of voting, and they are showing up at the ballot box.
Thanks to Stacey Abrams, who ran for Governor of Georgia has been building the multicultural community to register and vote is making a difference in every election. This growth has taken a southern state that was disenfranchising Blacks and people of color are turning the state purple and sometimes blue.
Georgia has become a hotspot for national politics and a battleground state. It is the only Deep South state that voted blue in 2020 national elections and two Democrats won the Senate seats. Georgia Democrats are showing up to win in elections. It is going to take millions of dollars, and it will take a collaboration of different organizations working together.
Rev. Warnock was born in Savannah in public housing, but somehow entered Morehouse College, and ended with a Ph.D. He was ordained in the ministry, and fifteen years ago, he was chosen to serve as senior pastor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.
Rev. Warnock comes from a long tradition of Black preachers starting with his father, and ended with the great Dr, Martin Luther King. He was destined for greatness, and has always been engaged in political endeavors.
“Be hopeful. Be optimistic. Never lose that sense of hope,” says Congressman John Lewis. Congratulation to Senator Raphael Warnock and blessing come from above.
