This morning Senator Reverend Warnock joined NPR’s Morning Edition with host Michel Martin to talk about his personal connection to Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. as the nation celebrates MLK Day

Since 2005, Senator Reverend Warnock has served as the Senior Pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, the former pulpit of Dr. King

Senator Reverend Warnock also discussed how lessons from Dr. King’s life informs his mindset entering the incoming Trump Administration

Senator Reverend Warnock on NPR: “Your life’s project should be longer and larger than your life span. 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”

Listen to Senator Warnock on NPR’s Morning EditionHERE

Washington D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock (D-GA) joined NPR’s Morning Edition with host Michel Martin to commemorate Martin Luther King Jr. Day. During the interview, Senator Warnock discussed his deep personal connection to Dr. King and how King’s legacy inspires his work in the Senate. Senator Warnock is Senior Pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Dr. King’s former pulpit.

“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…” said Senator Reverend Warnock to NPR. 

“I think 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, Georgia, that campaign didn’t go so well. Dr. King went to Chicago, and 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…” continued Senator Reverend Warnock. “Your life’s project should be longer and larger than your life span. 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.”

Read below a partial transcript from Senator Warnock’s interview on NPR’s Morning Edition: 

Senator Reverend Warnock (SRW): “I have long been inspired by the voice and the vision of Martin Luther King Jr., as you point out, I’m a post-civil rights generation baby and I was inspired by the ways in which he used his faith to motivate people to fight for justice, to fight for what he called the beloved community.

“You know, I think 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 through the lens of inevitability, but it was quite improbable that they would win the victories that they won.

“In this moment in which we’re seeing attacks on the very idea of diversity, which I think is this key and the secret sauce to America’s strength, in this moment in which we saw, even after my election, a full sail attack on voting rights, that work continues.

“Dr. King often talked Franz Schubert’s famous Unfinished Symphony, scholars have wondered why he didn’t finish the symphony and King would say to us that life is like that, it’s an unfinished symphony.

“I often say to people that if you are engaged in work that can be finished in your lifetime, it is not big enough. Your life’s project should be longer and larger than your life span. 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. I wouldn’t be where I am, were it not for good federal public policy.

“If someone hadn’t dreamed up something called Head Start, which helps create preschool-aged children to learn and embrace literacy early on. If someone hadn’t introduced me to something called Upward Bound, which put me on a college campus as a high school student, if it were not for Pell Gants and low interest student loans, all of this good federal public policy, even with my initiative and commitment and drive, I wouldn’t be where I am today.”

Michel Martin (MM): “You actually hold both those occasions (MLK Day & Presidential Inauguration) in you. I wanted to ask how you’re thinking about that.”

(SRW): “I think you have to take the long view. Look, the people of my state elected me, and they also elected Donald Trump. 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.

“I think 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, Georgia, that campaign didn’t go so well. Dr. King went to Chicago, and 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.”

(MM): “Why have you decided to go to the inauguration?”

(SRW): “Donald Trump won the election. And one of the bedrock principles of our democratic system is the non-violent 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 January 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.”

Listen to the full interview HERE.

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