On Thursday evening, Senator Reverend Warnock delivered the commencement address to Georgia Institute of Technology’s Spring 2026 graduating class in Atlanta, Georgia
Senator Warnock encouraged the Class of 2026 to hold onto hope, use their voices to challenge the status quo, and help make America a better place for future generations
Senator Reverend Warnock: “We need our best and brightest who have not only been trained in head, but they’ve been tuned in their heart to do the right thing—to recognize that, at the end of the day, we need each other”
Photo courtesy of Miguel Martinez/Atlanta Journal Constitution
Above: Senator Reverend Warnock at Georgia Institute of Technology’s 2026 commencement
Atlanta, GA – Thursday evening, Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock (D-GA) delivered the keynote commencement address to Georgia Institute of Technology’s Spring 2026 graduating class in Atlanta, Georgia. Senator Warnock urged graduates to challenge the status quo and think creatively to help make America a better place for future generations and bring the country closer to its constitutional ideals.
During his remarks, Senator Warnock, an alum of Atlanta’s Morehouse College and the only sitting U.S. Senator to graduate from a Historically Black College & University (HBCU), encouraged the graduates to use their voices for good in pursuit of what Martin Luther King Jr., called the ‘Beloved Community’. He reminded graduates that the power to change the world resides within them, and that their hope and aspirations are strengths that they should continue to rely on.
“You give us all hope,” said Senator Reverend Warnock. “There were difficult days to get here, but you are here. It took grit. It took immense effort. It took sleepless nights. There were days when perhaps you felt like giving up, but you kept going, and you kept the faith. You did not allow yourself to get lost in a sea of despair.”
“We are counting on you to build what Dr. King called the ‘beloved community’,” the Senator continued. “And I’m thinking a lot these days about the fact that through his activism and through the work of just ordinary people, we pushed our country closer to its ideals…And so I dare you, mighty class of 2026, if you see something wrong in the world that needs to be corrected, I dare you to keep walking, even if you don’t have it all figured out. I dare you to keep marching.”
Georgia Tech is the largest university in the state of Georgia and is nationally recognized as the best value public university in the country—providing the best return on investment to its graduates. Thursday’s undergraduate commencement ceremony featured 1,100 undergraduates from the school’s College of Computing and Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts.
A video link of Senator Warnock’s speech can be found HERE.
Please find a transcript of Senator Warnock’s speech at Georgia Institute of Technology below:
“Good evening, Georgia Tech. What’s the good word?
“And here I was looking for a Bible verse.
“It’s great to be here.
“I want to thank your amazing president, Dr Cabrera. Give him a great big round of applause for that introduction. So grateful for his leadership. Georgia Institute of Technology, thank you so very much. I mean it—from the bottom of my heart. Thank you for this great honor.
“I’m always happy to do everything I can to deliver for the people of Georgia and for the Georgia Tech family because you deserve it. And you have contributed—and continue to contribute—so much to our great country.
“Today is a high day. We stand on the mountain top. But I always like to remind students that while graduation may represent the end of this phase of your matriculation, commencement by definition, is not the end. It is the beginning. You have crossed the river, but the ocean lies ahead. In the words of Robert Frost—more than a century ago—the woods are lovely, dark and deep, but I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep.
“I want to thank not only your president, but this amazing faculty. What is an institution without its faculty? Come on, students, give the faculty a great big—everybody— give the faculty a great big round of applause. So grateful to the staff, the people you see, the people you don’t see, but who keep the lights shining bright and facilitate the work. Grateful to board members, alums, let’s hear it for the parents and grandparents! Your names are on these degrees, but there are a lot of hands on those degrees. This is the village that makes it possible.
“Last but certainly not least, let’s take a moment, and really, I mean really, celebrate the future. Let’s hear it for the mighty class of 2026. Come on! Let me hear you, 2026!
“We all have reason to rejoice. The future is unfolding before our very eyes. I mean it when I say you give us all hope. There were difficult days to get here, but you are here. It took grit. It took immense effort. It took sleepless nights. There were days when perhaps you felt like giving up, but you kept going, and you kept the faith. You did not allow yourself to get lost in a sea of despair. You remained hopeful. You found a way to make a way out of no way. That’s what we say often in my church and in my church tradition, sometimes you got to make a way, with God’s help, out of no way.
“All of us are here, but it took some a little bit more just to get here. I speak from experience. I stand here as a member of the United States Senate, but I’m the first college graduate in my family. I’m number 11 out of 12. Clearly, my folks read the Bible: be fruitful and multiply. But I decided as a kid, growing up in the Kayton Homes housing projects of Savannah, Georgia, that my parents’ income did not need to determine my outcome. But the year, I went to Morehouse College—right up the street—the tuition, room, and board at Morehouse College was more than my family’s annual income, but I decided I just wanted to be there. Because that’s where Martin Luther King, Jr., Georgia’s greatest son, attended.
“And I wanted to be there at that school. I didn’t know one day I’d be the pastor of the church. God always dreams a dream bigger than the one we’ve been dreaming for ourselves. But I remember the day my parents dropped me off. I should tell you that my folks are both Pentecostal preachers. They spoke to us all the time in King James English. My mom would say, ‘thou shalt wash the dishes, lest I smite thee with my rod and my staff’. And I turned to my parents, and I asked my dad, you know, I needed a few dollars to get started. My dad was very generous. God bless his memory. But things were tight. He didn’t have any money to give to me, and so Dean, he looked at me and he spoke to me in King James English. He said, ‘silver and gold hath I none, but such as I have, give I unto thee’. Who speaks like that? ‘God be with you, son.’ And he put his arms around me, and my mom put her arms around me. They gave me a great big hug, and then they got in the car and drove off in the horizon, left me standing there.
“And there were guys there who hadn’t been to the first class, and they were already—if you’ve met Morehouse men—they were already dressed in suits, looking like they were working on Wall Street. Some of them were driving by in their fancy cars. Well, four years later, some of those guys in those fancy cars were driving by the stage. But I was standing on the stage getting my degree because I knew that my parents’ income did not have to determine my outcome.
“And the thing that keeps me up at night—as a voice for Georgia, as a parent, as a citizen, as a Senator—is a recognition that it would be harder now for me to accomplish what I did as a kid growing up in the 80s than it was back then. And so that’s something that we’ve got to fix. We’ve got to make sure that every child has a chance. The God I know raises up genius and talent and intelligence all over town, all over the world, on both sides of the railroad track. It’s not about where you start, it’s about where you’re going. All of us have something to contribute, and we ought to create a world where every child can live up to their highest potential. That’s not just good for them, that’s good for all of us. And so today is a happy day.
“And so, class of 2026 stand up. I didn’t mean literally, but since you’re standing up, —they really do follow instructions. Please be seated. I think they’re ready to get out of here [laughs].
“So let me defy Baptist gravity and be relatively brief. I love these themes, this theme of progress and service. You passed the test. You’ve done the work, but now we’re counting on you to build what Dr King called the ‘beloved community’.
“There are those in our country right now who are trying to divide us because people who have no vision traffic in division, they don’t know how to lead us, and so they’re trying to divide us. Here’s what I offer to all of us, no matter your politics. And I mean it, Democrats, Republicans, independents, red, yellow, brown, black and white, rich and poor, wherever you come from, we’ve all we got. There’s something magnificent about that American creed, e pluribus unum. Out of many, one. That’s the future, and we don’t have time to be divided. We don’t have time for this bigotry and xenophobia. It is in our enlightened self-interest to figure out how to live together in this world and how to get a get along in this country, and how to make sure we have a planet that is worthy of our incredible children, that’s in all of our enlightened self-interests. And so, we’re counting on you to do that work. We got many challenges in front of us.
“At Georgia Tech, I think especially about the promise and the perils of AI. I met a couple of days ago with AI leaders and creators from all of the various companies, and they were laying out how quickly this thing is changing every day. We have got to make sure that it emerges in such a way that it is more helpful than hurtful. Implications for the labor market, implications for privacy, our national security—a whole range of things—we need our best and brightest who have not only been trained in head, but they’ve been tuned in their heart to do the right thing, to recognize that at the end of the day, we need each other.
“And so, God bless all of you! Congratulations on this incredible achievement. I do hope, with your President, that you will go out, some of you at least, and make a whole lot of money and give back to Georgia Tech. But always remember, in the words of Benjamin Elijah Mays, that you make a living by what you get. You make a life by what you give. It’s not simply about your education; it’s about your vocation. The issue is, what are you going to do with all that you have received?
“And I hope that if you haven’t already figured it out, that you will begin to discern your own life’s project. Your life’s project that’s bigger than a career, your life’s project. And I submit to you that your life’s project ought to be larger than your life span. If your life’s project can be accomplished in your life span, it is too small. You ought to take on something that’s so big that at the end of your life you’ll have to pass it on to somebody else to finish it, on behalf of humanity and on behalf of what Dr. King called the ‘beloved community’.
“And so, Dr. King who sat in these seats many decades ago, understood that he needed to make his education work for something. And I’m thinking a lot these days about the fact that through his activism and through the work of just ordinary people, we pushed our country closer to its ideals. And when they passed the civil rights movement, the Civil Rights Bill, into law. Dr. Cabrera—Dr. King and others went to see President Johnson. President Johnson was proud that they had passed the Civil Rights Bill into law. And Dr. King said, ‘great, we’ve got that Civil Rights Bill’. And without even missing a beat, he said, ‘I’m glad we got Civil Rights Bill. Now we need a Voting Rights Bill’. He said, ‘I need a voting rights law. And President Johnson began to say, ‘I can’t get that passed right now. I don’t have the power.’ And they left the meeting, and the staff was feeling all demoralized and dejected, and they began to say, ‘what are we going to do?’ ‘The president said he doesn’t have the power to give us voting rights.’
“At that time, by the way—as you look at me as a United States Senator—there were 77 black people in political office throughout the whole country. I’m not just talking about in the in the Capitol of the United States. All over the country, 77 black people were in office prior to the Voting Rights Act.
“And so, they left the meeting, and they began to say, ‘what are we going to do? The President said he doesn’t have the power.’ And Dr. King said, ‘Well, if the President doesn’t have the power, I guess we’re going to have to go and get him some’.
“So, when you see John Lewis crossing that Edmund Pettus Bridge, know that he understood that it’s not about the people in power. It’s about the power that’s in the people. And he kept crossing that bridge with brute force under the color of law. On the other side of that bridge, he had no reason to think that he could win, but he kept on walking. And so, I dare you, mighty class of 2026, if you see something wrong in the world that needs to be corrected, I dare you to keep walking. Even if you don’t have it all figured out. I dare you to keep on marching. I dare you to keep on speaking up. I dare you to keep on showing up. I dare you to insist that your voice will be heard, because your vote is your voice, and your voice is your human dignity, and everybody deserves a chance to be heard.
“So, to everyone that openeth up away and away and away. High soul climbs the highway and the low soul gropes to low and in between on Misty flats to rest, drift to and fro, but to each one, they openeth up a highway and a low and each one must decide the way his soul would go.
“I hope that you will find your magnificent obsession. I hope that something will so captivate your attention and your imagination that you will spend sleepless nights working on it, not just to get richer, but to make the world better. I hope that if you encounter a mountain, you’ll climb it, a river, you’ll cross it, a dream, you’ll pursue it, a vision you’ll do it, a bad habit, you’ll break it, a handicap, you’ll overcome it, a testimony, you’ll tell it, a book, you’ll write it, a sermon, you’ll preach it. I hope you have a vote and you will cast it, but you will make sure that your voice is heard in this grand experiment called America, and together, we’ll stand up in the spirit and fulfillment of those three great words that are not just the first three words of the Constitution, but they are the American creed. We the People! Red, yellow, brown, black and white. We the People! Jews and Christians and Muslims and Hindus and those who claim no particular faith tradition at all. We the People will stand together and ensure that the 21st Century, like the 20th century, is the American century, and we will make the world safe for all of God’s children.
“God bless you. Keep the faith and keep looking up.”