Tribute To King, Rebuke Of Demagogues In Warnock Sermon

ATLANTA — A day before the nation’s annual holiday celebrating the life of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Sen.-elect Raphael Warnock of Georgia returned to the pulpit at the church that was King’s spiritual home, calling for the nation to adhere to “God’s vision of equity.” Warnock’s wide-ranging holiday message included a tribute to King and a remembrance of his last days organizing an anti-poverty crusade before he was gunned down in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1968. “The tragedy is that the minimum wage had more purchasing power in 1968 than the minimum wage does in 2021,” he said at one point. Warnock decried the pain and death of the COVID-19 pandemic.