Browne told me, The reality is, Im not surprised hes
doing this, meaning, running for Senate. The line from then to now is right
there.
While Warnock was in high school, he
attended Upward Bound
programs in the summer at Savannah State, a federally funded program
that prepares children from low-income families for college. Thats where he
began to take shape, said Otis Johnson, who spoke to Upward Bound students
during those years and educated teenagers about
the civil rights movement. Around the
same time, Johnson also hosted a local radio program called
Message from the Grass Roots, where activists and others
talked about economic and social justice.
For Warnock, Johnson represented intellect and integrity, all committed to pulling folk up
from the grassroots, as he told
a group of Savannah leaders back in October.
As teenagers in Savannah, Pastor Rouché recalls, The mindset of most people was, get out of here, at least to
Atlanta, which was more progressive and where there were many more successful
African-Americans. After
earning an undergraduate degree from Morehouse College, Warnock pursued
postgraduate work at Union Theological Seminary in New York and
eventually became assistant pastor at Harlems Abyssinian Baptist Churcha
post once held by Adam
Clayton Powell, Jr., who went on to become the first Black member of Congress
from New York. In
2005, Warnock was named as the fifthand youngestsenior pastor in the 134-year
history of Atlantas Ebenezer Baptist Church, where Martin Luther King, Jr. had
also preached. It was like every piece fit together for the next move, Rouché
said. It was like, hes making his mark.
Once
back in Georgia, Warnock would return to Savannah and preach as a guest at the
church of one of his sisters, Reverend Joyce Hall. The thing that was
eye-opening, was to see him talk about the struggle, Rouché said. That Jesus
was for people in the struggle. His ministry was there for the
disenfranchised. Warnock
recommended a book to Rouché: The God of the Oppressed by James H. Cone. Deemed
by some to be the father of
Black theology, Cones central message is that
liberation from oppression is the true message of the cross. Warnock, said
Otis Johnson, comes out of the school of Black theology. Thats why I enjoy
his sermons. The Ebenezer Baptist minister speaks to him as a Matthew 25
Christian, he added, referring to the notion of caring for those who are
hungry, thirsty, sick, or in prison. He would take his theology to the Senate.read more
Can Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock Make History?
