I am beyond joyful.
We turned Georgia blue. We flipped the Senate.
It’s stunning to contemplate what this means. The symbolism alone is overwhelming.
Reverend (Senator-Elect) Raphael Warnock pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church where Martin Luther King led the fight for voting rights and human dignity. John Lewis — a lion of the civil rights movement was a parishioner at that church. He is buried across from the church. Reverend Warnock is the first black Democrat ever elected to the Senate from the south.
Georgia is the state where only 50 years ago Lester Maddox was governor. He was a vicious racist and opponent of desegregation who used the pick handle as his symbol. What a moving repudiation of what this man represented by the election of Reverend Warnock to the U.S. Senate.
Senator-Elect Jon Ossoff is a young (33 years old) Jewish man. Son of an immigrant. He was an intern for John Lewis. He is an investigative journalist, a documentary film maker. Educated at Georgetown University & the London School of Economics.
During the civil rights struggles of the 1960s it was black citizens supported by the Jewish community that led to the Voting Rights Act. And now the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act will finally come to the floor of the Senate and be voted into law restoring the rights that were gutted by the Supreme Court in Shelby County v. Holder.
None of this could have happened without the focused dedication and brilliant leadership of Stacy Abrams who did not become bitter or disaffected after her questionable loss to Brian Kemp for the governorship of Georgia. Instead she rose up, fought back against voter suppression and has given us a blueprint to follow in all the other states where marginalized people are denied their voice at the ballot box.
This country walked right up to the brink, almost stepped over that precipice into autocracy and fascism. We owe a profound debt of gratitude to a our fellow citizens who in the words of Doc Rivers —
“We’re the ones getting killed. We’re the ones getting shot. We’re the ones that we’re denied to live in certain communities. We’ve been hung. We’ve been shot. All you do is keep hearing about fear. It’s amazing why we keep loving this country, and this country does not love us back. It’s really so sad.”
Well they kept on loving this country in Georgia yesterday, they kept the faith, and we can never repay what we owe them.
