by MPeriod
Posted 3 years ago
The Rev. Raphael Warnock, a Democrat, defeated Sen. Kelly Loeffler in Tuesday's special election. His victory gives Georgia Democrats a Senate seat for the first time in more than a decade.
Warnock makes history as the first Black senator to ever represent the state.
He’s just the 11th Black senator in history.
He’s also the first Black Democratic senator from the South since Reconstruction and only the second overall.
Warnock, senior pastor of the church where Martin Luther King Jr. preached through the height of the Civil Rights movement until his assassination, made history, in part due to a surge in Black turnout.
In an amazing show of political power, black voters turned out. And iit wasn’t just in metro Atlanta, but also in rural and small-town counties across South Georgia, where Black turnout has historically lagged. Warnock's opponent, throughout the campaign, often use clips of his sermons to frame him as a radical, an label many black voters saw as racist, and an attack on the black church.
Topic: Politics
Tags: Raphael Warnock US Senate Georgia Senate Elections Georgia Special Elections