Two of America’s leading Black preachers, U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock and the Rev. William J. Barber II, who helps run the Poor People’s Campaign, teamed up Sunday in the Ebenezer Baptist Church pulpit to mark the Atlanta institution’s 135th anniversary.
Although the two leaders shared a stage in person, it was virtual service and as celebratory as it could be under the circumstances of operating under COVID-19 restrictions.
But the two pastors, each of whom have risen to become key political voices, could not ignore dire issues like what they called attacks on voter rights — and rampant discrimination, as seen this past week with the shooting deaths of eight women, six of whom were of Asian ancestry, at spas in metro Atlanta.
Barber called on churches like Ebenezer, where Warnock is senior pastor, to step up.
“When we see people willing to strike down Asian women and murder them, the church must say, ‘Wait a minute, wait a minute, that’s not right, that’s not love, that not God,” Barber said.
Barber, whose Poor People’s Campaign has become a national coalition to address the challenges of the working poor, has drawn inspiration from the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s similar campaign that essentially grounded to a halt when he was assassinated in 1968.
Now, 53 years later, in King’s former church, while Warnock, the church’s senior pastor nodded, Barber spoke about the church’s historic role in America and the challenges it still faces — like challenges to voting rights and rich politicians and corporations blocking aid for the poor.
“The very presence of an Ebenezer, is supposed to be counter to the world’s exclusion, the forces of tyranny and empire and injustice are supposed to be shaken when there’s a church in town,” Barber said. “When the church sees that people are being hurt because of homophobia and xenophobia and hate crimes. When we see the forces trying to leave 140 million poor and low wealth people without fully seeking to address the issue, the church’s presence and prophetic voice must say: Wait a minute.”
Located on Atlanta’s historic Auburn Avenue, Ebenezer, founded in 1886, is one of the oldest and most important Black churches in America.
King was baptized there at 5. He preached his first sermon there at 17 and his last one, “Drum Major Instinct,” on Feb. 4, 1968, exactly two months before he was assassinated in Memphis. That last sermon would also serve as his eulogy. His family played it at his funeral.
King’s maternal grandfather, the Rev. Adam D. Williams, became pastor in 1894 and saw the church experience its first significant growth. After moving to several locations in downtown Atlanta, Williams settled on the plot of land on Auburn Avenue and built the brick Late Gothic Revival-style church, which was completed in 1922.
Martin Luther King Sr., who would marry Williams’ daughter, Alberta, became the pastor in 1931 and immediately began campaigning for voting rights in Atlanta.
A member of the King family was pastor of the church for 81 years, from the day that Williams took the helm in 1894 to King Sr.’s retirement in 1975, a year after his wife was murdered in the church while playing “The Lord’s Prayer.”
King Jr. served as co-pastor of the church from 1960 until his death in 1968.
In 1999, the congregation, then led by the Rev. Joseph Roberts, moved 75 yards across the street to what is known as the Horizon Sanctuary.
The old church, with its iconic blue sign, has been completely renovated to look as it did in 1968, and it has since been incorporated into the National Historical Site and operated by the National Park Service.
Warnock, who took over in 2005, is the congregation’s fifth pastor in its 135 years. On Sunday, he paid tribute to the church’s longest-serving member, Christine King Farris, King’s oldest sister, who has been a member of the church since her birth in 1927.
Warnock left most of the preaching to Barber, adding at the close of the service, “We open wide, the doors of the church. This is the 135th anniversary of the Ebenezer Baptist Church. We are determined to be a house of prayer for all people.”
But earlier this week, in his first floor speech as a member of the U.S. Senate, Warnock continued his defense of voting rights and told his Senate colleagues that the filibuster should not get in the way of passing a federal overhaul of elections, campaign finance and redistricting laws.
“Access to voting and preempting politicians’ efforts to restrict voting — is so fundamental to our democracy that it is too important to be held hostage by a Senate rule, especially one historically used to restrict the expansion of basic rights,” Warnock said Wednesday. “It is a contradiction to say we must protect minority rights in the Senate while refusing to protect minority rights in our society.”
Earlier this month, the U.S. House approved election legislation known as the For the People Act.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that the timing of Warnock’s maiden speech coincided with the introduction in the Senate of that legislation.
Warnock also used that maiden speech in the Senate to talk about the spa shootings.
“This unspeakable violence, visited largely upon the Asian community, is one that causes all of us to recommit ourselves to the way of peace, an active peace that prevents these kinds of tragedies from happening in the first place,” he said. “We pray for these families.”
