Sign of a changing South: Raphael Warnock joins Senate

The historic nature of the Rev. Raphael Warnock’s election victory this month, the first time that Georgia had elected a Black senator, made headlines across the nation.

It also got the attention of the children living in Kayton Homes, a weathered two-story brick housing project in Savannah, where Mr. Warnock, a Democrat, grew up, one of 12 children. Terriyonna Blige, an energetic Black tween, points to the balcony of an apartment where she says Mr. Warnock lived as a child. “He won, right?” says Terriyonna. “Over 50%.”    

Mr. Warnock’s win “shows that it doesn’t matter where you come from, it only depends on where you’re going,” says teenager Sharefe Morgan.

As the children understood, the elections of Mr. Warnock, a Baptist preacher, and fellow Democrat Jon Ossoff, a 30-something Jewish filmmaker, thrust Georgia into the limelight. Their come-from-behind runoff victories on Jan. 5 brought the

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