Last night, Public Citizen awarded Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock with the Golden Boot Award for his advocacy in championing voting rights and defending democracy
Senator Reverend Warnock joins the ranks of other champions for democracy to have won this award, civil rights icon and Senator Warnock’s former parishioner Representative John Lewis (D-GA),Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT), and Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD)
Senator Reverend Warnock: “I’m in politics, but I have to tell you I’m not in love with politics. I’m in love with change”
Senator Reverend Warnock: “The protection of our democracy is job one because voting rights is preservative of all other rights. That’s the fight we have to keep fighting”
Senator Reverend Warnock: “We have to stand up because democracy is the whole game”
Washington, D.C: Last night, U.S. Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock (D-GA) accepted the Golden Boot Award from Public Citizen, a grassroots advocacy organization, for his efforts as a pastor and legislator to protect the sacred right to vote, and defend democracy. Senator Warnock received the honor at Public Citizen’s 50th Anniversary Gala on June 13, and delivered remarks after accepting the award focused on how advocates must keep working to address the ongoing threats to democracy that the United States is facing.
See below key excerpts of Senator Reverend Warnock’s remarks:
“My life is a testament to our grand democratic experiment. A government of the people by the people for the people. I’m in politics but I have to tell you I’m not in love with politics I’m in love with change. I didn’t set out, Madam Speaker, with all due respect to those who do this work, but I didn’t set out to be in the same. I was clear that my calling was the ministry. But over the course of the work that I’ve done with my congregation, over now, nearly two decades at Ebenezer Baptist Church finding myself getting into what John Lewis called good trouble time and time again. This chapter of my work emerged.”
“This is the work we do, and Public Citizen does so much important work. But I have to tell you that in my view, voting rights, the protection of our democracy is job one because voting rights is preservative of all other rights. That’s the fight we have to keep fighting.”
“As a man of faith, I believe that democracy is the political imagination of a spiritual idea. The notion that each of us has within us a spark of the divine. Therefore we ought to have a vote and a voice in the direction of our country in our destiny within it.”
“I don’t know who said mankind’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible. Mankind’s capacity for injustice makes democracy necessary. We have to stand up in this moment, it is absolutely necessary.”
“This award is special to me because I’ve gotten a few awards but this Golden Boot award makes me think about my dad. My dad, a Black man born in 1917, served in the armed forces during World War Two. One day while he was on his way home, he had to give up his seat to a young white teenager while wearing his soldier’s uniform. Yet my dad never gave up on America.”
See below a full transcript of Senator Reverend Warnock’s remarks:
“Thank you so very much. I am deeply honored to be here. Thank you Robert for your very kind and generous introduction. But I have to tell you. That you have failed at your assignment. The job of the person who’s introducing you is to lower people’s expectations. Thank you for your time and really too generous introduction.
“Again, hello, to Public Citizen. I thought we were celebrating 50 years tonight. Come on make some noise. 50 years. [sic]
“I am deeply honored to receive tonight’s Golden Boot award. Some of the previous honorees here tonight include the great Jamie Raskin. Give him a great big hand. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. And my parishioner the late great John Lewis, who taught all of us how to get into good trouble.
“My life is a testament to our grand democratic experiment. A government of the people, by the people, for the people. I’m in politics, but I have to tell you I’m not in love with politics. I’m in love with change.
“I didn’t set out, Madam Speaker, with all due respect to those who do this work, but I didn’t set out to be in the Senate. I was clear that my calling was the ministry. But over the course of the work that I’ve done with my congregation, over now, nearly two decades at Ebenezer Baptist Church finding myself getting into what John Lewis called “good trouble” time and time again. This chapter of my work emerged.
“And I have to tell you that when I got elected to the senate. I was feeling really good. A kid who grew up in public housing. One of 12 children. I’m number 11 out of 12. Clearly my parents — Pentecostal preachers read the scriptures: be fruitful and multiply. To me, now then to get elected to the most consequential deliberative body on the planet.
“I felt really good as our hard fought race was over. And the next morning everyone wants to talk to me. I got elected on January 5th, the next day I was on all the morning shows. I was on everything named “morning.” CBS This morning, Good Morning America. I knew I had arrived because I was on The View talking to Whoopi Goldberg. But it was the morning of January 6th. And by that afternoon we know the sad and terrible saga that unfolded. And we don’t get to pretend that January 6th did not happen.
“It was not a tour through the Capitol. We’ve seen tours. It was an assault on our democracy. And while it may make us feel good, we don’t really get to say that that’s not who we are because in a real sense that is who we are. As a father, I understand that the American family, like all families, has a complicated story. But the good news is that that’s not all that we are. We’re also a country where a kid who grew up in public housing can serve in the Senate.
“We are certain we always have a path to make the country better. So the tragedy of January 6th is part of who we are. But so is January 5th. And the work that you’ve been doing over the last 50 years is you’ve been trying to push us closer to January 5th where a kid regardless of what zip code, regardless of your parents income, it doesn’t have to determine your outcome. That is the vision of this organization. You’ve been doing this for 50 years. Standing up for the most marginalized members of the human family.
“Then we saw the tragedy of January 6th metastasize and voter suppression goes all across the country, in the name of voter fraud, voter suppression, dozens of them all over the country. And I know this personally because by the time I got around to my second race and I stood up during the 117th Congress trying to get us to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act then when I went off came around this time. People see me standing here but I don’t want you to forget what we had to go through to win.
“When we entered the runoff, the Secretary of State in Georgia said ‘I’m sorry but the law is very clear that you cannot on the weekend following the holidays.’ And the holidays he listed were Thanksgiving and, listen you can’t make this up, and oh boy, the holiday honoring Confederate general Robert E Lee. That’s why the increasingly diverse electorate in Georgia was told you cannot vote because it was the weekend following Robert E Lee’s birthday. What they were trying to do was to suppress the vote.
“And so you know what I did? I did what Public Citizen does. I sued. And we won.
“But then those who said we were just. Our hands are tied they then showed their hands because then they appealed the ruling. And we won again. Then they appealed the ruling again and said they needed emergency relief. And I thought to myself, relief from who? Relief from the people? Relief from voters? We won again.
“90 thousand people voted that weekend. Not much difference between that and the margin of my victory. You think about that.
“This is the work we do and Public Citizen does so much important work. But I have to tell you that in my view, voting rights, the protection of our democracy is job one because voting rights is preservative of all other rights. That’s the fight we have to keep fighting.
“There are folks who want to convince you that we don’t have to worry about these things anymore. They should tell that to Olivia Coley Pearson. A Black woman who I know, talked to her just the other day, down in Douglas county Georgia. Who got elected to the county commission of Douglas County, and then one day they when they have an election just a few years ago, just a few short years ago, a young woman who was struggling and she’s never voted before and needed a little bit of help. And Olivia Coley Pearson actually signed the form saying ‘yes I assisted her with managing the machine.’ And for that, she was charged with felony voter fraud and faced 15 years in prison.
“If you think we don’t have to deal with these issues anymore tell the folks that down in Quitman, Georgia. I want you to Google the Quitman 12. If you don’t know that story it reads like something in the 1950s. Except it was in 2010. When a group of Black women who had the unmitigated audacity to believe that they could flip the school board. And in the end the did. 12 brave souls. Just trying to help people to vote. Just using their own voice. Found themselves facing 120 counts. Their whole lives upended. Google it, Quitman County in 2010. So we have to keep fighting a good fight. We can’t be discouraged by the opposition.
“Who are we to quit? I had the honor of presiding over John Lewis as his pastor. I asked myself as I was planning to officiate his funeral the next day that like people was there so many others. I asked myself, Madam speaker, what was John Lewis thinking when he was getting ready to cross that Edmund Pettus Bridge? Him and Hosea Williams had nothing but a backpack. If you are thinking that one day he would receive a Presidential Medal of Freedom I’m sure he wasn’t thinking about that.
“Can you imagine that at the end of his life three American presidents, would attend his funeral, from both sides of the aisle?No, he could not imagine that. But that’s not why he did it. I think he was just trying to stay alive that day so he could get up and fight the next day. But by some stroke of destiny, he crossed the bridge and built the bridge at the same time. A bridge into a future where, where every person’s voice can be heard in our democracy. And so who are we to give up in the name of John Lewis? We will introduce and we will fight again for the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. We will stand up again for the Freedom to Vote Act.
“We will fight dark money that’s flooding our politics because we cannot allow the peoples voice to be squeezed out of their own houses. This house does not belong to the politicians, it does not belong to the corporations, it belongs to the people. And we have to give the people their voice inside their own house.
“As a man of faith, I believe that democracy is the political imagination of a spiritual idea. The notion that each of us has within us a spark of the divine. Therefore we ought to have a vote and a voice in the direction of our country and our destiny within it.
“Simply put this way, we all have value. That we have value and we ought to have a voice. I believe that a vote is a kind of prayer for the world we desire for ourselves and for our children. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, that great soul that marched alongside Dr. King, that Rabbi said when ‘I marched with Dr. King I felt like my legs were praying.’ And that’s what we need people who don’t just pray with their lips but who pray with their legs. Who stand up time and time again to the best of their ability.
“I don’t know who said mankind’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible. Mankind’s capacity for injustice makes democracy necessary. We have to stand up in this moment, it is absolutely necessary. We’re seeing the rise of authoritarian regimes, places that we would not have imagined.
“We have to stand up because democracy is the whole game. And there are a whole lot of things I care about but a democracy is the framework in which I get to fight. How is it in this moment where according to Fox News, yes I’m getting ready to cite Fox News, according to a Fox News poll 87% of Americans, when it comes to the issue of gun safety, believe that there ought to be universal background checks, and we still can’t get that introduces in the Congress?
“We have to fight. The issue of climate change. Just last week we witnessed the carnage of choking smoke blanket across the northeast corridor, choking us. And in a real sense these forces that work in our country are trying to choke the lifeblood out of our democracy. People who are much more in love with power than they are with democracy. But I’m not about to give up.
“My father, he was born in 1917. This award is special to me because I’ve gotten a few awards but this Golden Boot award makes me think about my dad. My dad — a Black man born in 1917. Served in the Armed forces during World War II. One day while he was on his way home he had to give up his seat to a young white teenager while wearing his soldier’s uniform. Yet my dad never gave up on America. My dad was a preacher and a junkman. On Sunday morning a preacher. And on Monday through Friday he picked up old junk cars and loaded them on the back of a truck the mechanisms of which he designed himself. Then on Sunday morning the man who lifted broken cars lifted broken people, reminding them that they should not have their head down. And every morning he would wake me up with the same sermon. He said ‘get up. Get dressed. Put your shoes on. Get ready.’ I said ‘Dad — get ready for what? It’s Saturday,’ He said ‘I don’t know just put your shows on and get ready for whatever is coming.’
“So I’ll take this award as a gentle push. From my late dad, he’s somewhere watching from the banks of glory reminding me that in this moment reminding all of us to put our shoes on. To get ready for the fight. Never to give up. Never to give in. There are those who faced obstacles and challenges but they stood up time and time again and in the name of God. [sic] So thank you for this award it reminds me to keep my shoes on. Keep fighting. Are you ready? I’m ready. To advance voting rights. Are you ready? [sic]. Let’s stand together lets vote together let’s pray together. Because when we stand together, we win.
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