Sen. Raphael Warnock

When President Johnson passed a civil rights bill into law, he said, I'm sorry that I have probably signed the South over to the Republicans for a very long time.

And sure enough, the Dixiecrats

of old in the old Democratic Party, went to the Republican Party.

And there were a lot of Black Republicans, including Dr. King's own father, pastor of the church that I now lead.

Daddy King became a Democrat.

And so there's a history to this.

And the idea that you can disaggregate race from partisanship in the South when race was at the center of the thing in the first place and continues to be is deeply dishonest.

So what we've got to do in this moment, because this is not just about black voters, it's really about our whole coalition.

It's about this new multiracial movement.

multi-generational American electorate that they're trying to stop at the corner.

We're talking about women voters.

They're still trying to pass the Save Act, which would disproportionately hurt women.

We're talking about Citizens United that squeeze the voices of ordinary people out of their election, gives corporate entities an outsized voice in our politics.

And we're seeing the direct result of that is more and more wealth is concentrated at the top in our country.

And so this is really about saving the voices of ordinary people.

Black people, brown voters, young people,

poor working class people, women.

It's about having representation that looks like America.

And so part of what we've got to do is we've got to beat back against those who would try to so demoralize us, who would try to weaponize despair in such a way that people don't even bother to show up and help voters to understand that you've got to fight for your democracy.

Now you must show up more, more now than ever.