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Raphael Gamaliel Warnock (/ ˈ r ɑː f i ɛ l ˈ w ɔː r n ɒ k / RAH-fee-el WOR-nok; born July 23, 1969) is an American Baptist pastor and politician serving as the junior United States senator from Georgia since 2021. A member of the Democratic Party, Warnock has been the senior pastor of Atlanta's Ebenezer Baptist Church since 2005.
Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock @SenatorWarnock Apr 11 Despite having one hand tied behind his back, President Biden has still managed to cancel billions in student loan debt.
Raphael G. Warnock. Democrat-Georgia. B40D Dirksen Senate Office Building. Washington, DC 20510. Phone: 202-224-3643. About the Senator: WARNOCK, Raphael Gamaliel, a Senator from Georgia; born in Savannah, Ga., July 23, 1969; graduated Sol C. Johnson High School, Savannah, Ga., 1987; B.A., psychology, Morehouse College, 1991; M.Div., M.Phil ...
Learn about the life and career of Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock, who represents Georgia in the U.S. Senate and is a pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. Find out his background, education, achievements, and sponsored and cosponsored legislation on various topics.
- Overview
- Early life
- A preacher’s life
- A politician’s life
- Personal life
Raphael Warnock (born July 23, 1969, Savannah, Georgia, U.S.) American Democratic politician and the first Black person elected to the United States Senate from the state of Georgia.
Named for an archangel, Raphael Warnock is the 11th of 12 children born to Jonathan and Verlene Warnock, both of whom were Pentecostal ministers. Jonathan Warnock also sold salvaged cars to a steelyard. Raphael Warnock followed in his parents’ footsteps, preaching his first sermon when he was 11 years old. The family lived in a four-bedroom apartment in public housing in Savannah, Georgia, but, as he wrote in his memoir, A Way Out of No Way (2022), because of government assistance “my family never lived outdoors, we never went hungry, and I never missed out on an opportunity to learn.”
In high school Warnock was elected senior class president and was voted “Most Likely to Succeed.” He also participated in a college-prep program that included a field trip to Atlanta, where he visited the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change. That experience led him to listen to King’s speeches, in which he called on the church to be active in the fight for social justice. Warnock decided to attend Morehouse College, King’s alma mater. He was the first member of his family to earn a degree from a four-year college.
While at Morehouse, Warnock did a summer internship at the Sixth Avenue Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. He would later tell The New York Times that it was during the period that his faith moved from quiet prayer to social activism. “It was the Baptists who preached a kind of Social Gospel that captured my attention and imagination,” he said. He went on to obtain a Master of Divinity degree in 1994 from Union Theological Seminary in New York City and was ordained a Baptist minister. He continued his studies at Union Theological Seminary, eventually completing a Ph.D. in theology in 2006.
After his ordination, Warnock served as assistant pastor at Abyssinian Baptist Church in the Harlem district of New York City. He later served (2001–05) as senior pastor at Douglas Memorial Community Church, one of the largest churches in Baltimore, Maryland. He used the pulpit to encourage congregants to fight against drug addiction and the HIV crisis that was rampaging through Black communities. He concluded a 2001 service by being tested for the AIDS virus. In 2005 he was chosen to take over as senior pastor at the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where the man who had inspired him as a teenager—Martin Luther King, Jr.—had once been co-pastor. Warnock was 35 years old, the youngest person ever named senior pastor at Ebenezer. From the pulpit, he took up the causes of voting rights and death-row prisoners. After Black teenager Trayvon Martin was shot and killed in a Florida neighbourhood while wearing a hoodie, Warnock donned a Morehouse hoodie to deliver a sermon.
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In 2019 the senior U.S. senator from Georgia, Republican Johnny Isakson, announced that he planned to resign his post at the end of the year for health reasons. Georgia businesswoman Kelly Loeffler, a Republican, was appointed to replace Isakson until a special election could be held in November 2020 to fill the remaining two years of Isakson’s term. Warnock entered the race in a field of what would ultimately become more than 20 candidates. In explaining his making the leap from preacher to politician, Warnock said, “Politics is a tool to effect the kind of change that I want to see in the world.”
Warnock campaigned on a platform that included proposals to expand healthcare coverage, reform the federal criminal justice system, and forgive student loans. He was the top vote-getter when the balloting took place on November 3. However, because no candidate achieved the necessary 50 percent of the vote to win the election outright, he advanced to a runoff against Loeffler, the second-place finisher. The runoff attracted national attention, as it was critical in determining which party controlled the Senate in the new Congress. Warnock defeated Loeffler in the runoff by a margin of 51–49 percent in the January 5, 2021, election and was sworn into office on January 20, becoming the first Black senator elected from Georgia and the first Black Democrat elected to the Senate from the South.
Warnock had long been considered one of Atlanta’s most eligible bachelors, but on New Year’s Eve 2015 he proposed to Ouleye Ndoye in front of the congregation at Ebenezer Baptist Church. The couple were married privately the next month and had two children. In May 2019 Warnock filed for divorce; the couple was officially divorced in 2020. During di...
- Tracy Grant
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Aug 5, 2022 · How does a Black pastor and activist run for re-election in Georgia, a state that is the epicenter of American politics? This article explores Warnock's unique style, his bipartisan infrastructure amendment with Ted Cruz, and his contrast with Herschel Walker.
Dec 7, 2022 · A Pastor and Politician Who Sees Voting as a Form of Prayer. Raphael Warnock, a son of Savannah public housing who rose to become Georgia’s first Black senator, secured a full six-year term and...
