Updated January 20, 2025 at 13:27 PM ET
As Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was becoming the voice of the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s, he was serving in another key role as a pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.
The church's current senior pastor, Rev. Raphael Warnock, is also pulling double duty as the junior U.S. Senator from Georgia.
Warnock was elected to a full Senate term in 2022 in a tight race against former NFL star Herschel Walker. Warnock drew on his Georgia upbringing and his work as a pastor to win his seat.
While speaking at The King Center in Atlanta back in 2023, Warnock said the Civil Rights Movement icon demonstrated that it matters "not how long you live, but how well you live."
"He left us a long time ago, but he speaks more powerfully from the crypt than most politicians speak on the floor of the United States Congress," Warnock said then.
Warnock joined Morning Edition to discuss his political rise, how MLK Jr.'s message continues to resonate and the state of politics in a second Donald Trump presidency.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Michel Martin: So now you have a chance to speak on the floor of the United States Congress. What are some of the messages that you receive from him that you take with you to Capitol Hill?
Sen. Raphael Warnock: I have long been inspired by the voice and the vision of Martin Luther King Jr. I'm a post-civil rights generation baby, and I was inspired by the ways in which Dr. King used his faith to motivate people to fight for justice, to fight for what he called the beloved community. Sometimes we look back at the victories that were won during the Civil Rights movement, and because we are on the other side of that history. Too often we have a way of looking at it through the lens of inevitability. But it was quite improbable that they would win the victories that they won.
And so in this moment in which we're seeing attacks on the very idea of diversity, which I think is the key and the secret sauce to America's strength in this moment in which we saw, even after my election, a full scale attack on voting rights. That work continues. I often say to people that if you are engaged in work that can be finished in your lifetime, it's not big enough. Your life's project should be longer and larger than your lifespan. And that's why I wake up every day trying to think about what I can do for working class people, what legislation I can pass to give every kid in Georgia a chance and in America a chance.
Martin: Today is the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. It's also Inauguration Day. And one of the reasons we called you is that you actually hold both those occasions in you. To that end, you know, the next Senate will be Republican majority, meaning you will be part of the minority. Donald Trump will be leading the party from the White House. And so I wanted to ask how you're thinking about that.
Warnock: I think you have to take the long view. Look, the people of my state elected me and they also elected Donald Trump. And somehow, while my vision of America is quite different from his, I'm eager to find the places where I can work on both sides of the aisle. But in the places where that vision clashes with the basic precepts of human dignity, where it will hurt the people that I'm called to serve, you will see me stand up and be a voice of resistance. Because of the progress of the Civil Rights movement, we have a way of forgetting about the challenges that Dr. King had. Dr. King had a tough time in Albany, Ga. That campaign didn't go so well. Dr. King went to Chicago. He had a tough time there, but he kept on pushing. He kept his eyes on the prize. And that's what I intend to do.
Martin: I understand that you are planning to attend the inauguration in person. There are those who are unwilling to. They feel that the way this campaign was waged, they feel that the candidate himself, now soon-to-be president, they don't want to validate that. Why have you decided to go?
Warnock: Donald Trump won the election. And one of the bedrock principles of our democratic system is the nonviolent transfer of power. And it is something to which I'm deeply committed. Trump himself did not embrace that, sadly. I recall that during my first election I was elected on Jan. 5, 2021. The very next day we saw the most violent attack that we've ever seen on the United States Capitol. Egged on, encouraged, facilitated, I think in many ways by the former president who will now be the next president.
But he won the election and sometimes you got to be present in order to engage in the fight. I see my presence as an endorsement of our democratic principles.
Copyright 2025 NPR
