Though he was campaigning hundreds of miles away, the spectre of presidential candidate Newt Gingrich was still part of the service Sunday at Ebenezer Baptist Church as the preacher switched his topic from religion to politics.
The reproach from the Rev. Raphael Warnock came a day after a meeting in South Carolina where African American worshipers asked difficult and pointed questions of Gingrich and challenged some of his comments that seemed directed at their race.
"We know what this is. It's the same racist rhetoric," Warnock said, calling the state's former congressman our "Georgia home boy."
The former U.S. House speaker has said his comments were misconstrued but on Saturday in South Carolina he said he stood by calling Obama a "food stamp president."
South Carolina holds its Republican presidential primary on Saturday. Georgia's is not until March 6 and the field of GOP candidates could be down to one man by then.
Warnock told congregants that this year's presidential election is more important than the one in 2008, when Barack Obama was elected.
"This is not a time to be weary," Warnock said. "This is not a time to stand alone."
He said Republicans were making the "most vicious assault against the Voting Rights Act that we've seen in a century.
"By now, the suppression of voting rights should be beyond ... politics," Warnock said. "You cannot celebrate Dr. King on Monday and undermine people's ability to vote on Super Tuesday [the Georgia primary]."
Each year on the Sunday before his national holiday, Ebenezer honors King, who was born Jan. 15, 1929. King was co-pastor at Ebenezer from 1960 until his assassination on April 4, 1968.
Warnock reminded the congregants sitting shoulder to shoulder of Gingrich's comments he made while campaigning in Iowa and New Hampshire.
"Why are they talking about black people in New Hampshire and Iowa? I've been up there and there are only six [African Americans]," Warnock said, stressing the point that there are few African Americans in those states.
African Americans constitute 2.9 percent of Iowa's population and 1.1 percent of New Hampshire's. In contrast, almost 29 percent of South Carolina's population is African American and 30.5 percent of Georgia's people are black.
Gingrich has said poor children as young as 9 years should work at least part-time cleaning their schools in order to learn about work. He also has said the heads of families that receive benefits from Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, also called Welfare, simply don't want to work.
"We ought not stigmatize the poor, some of whom were middle class last week," Warnock said.
Gingrich also put on his Twitter post that he would go to the next meeting of the NAACP to "tell the African-American community why they should demand paychecks instead of food stamps."
"Mr. Gingrich knows a lot about Welfare," Warnock said. "The [poor get] their Welfare from TANF. He gets his from Freddie Mac," Warnock said referring to the former speaker's previous position as a consultant with the lender.
"They get $160 a week and he gets $1.6 million, Mr. Gingrich, let there be Welfare reform and let it begin with you," Wornack said.
Later Sunday the Gingrich campaign issued a rebuttal to Warnock’s statements by the Rev. Michael Youssef, pastor of Atlanta’s Church of the Apostles.
"Newt Gingrich is trying to heal our nation not divide it," Youssef said. "If he were to lead this nation, the poor, the unemployed and the homeless might find hope and a new direction as we see our nation healed. There is nothing racial or racist about wanting to turn around our economy and help those without work find jobs and support their families. I commend him for it," Youssef said in an emailed statement.
Youssef issued an additional followup statement.
"I'm not sure what playbook they are talking about when you consider black unemployment is off the charts," he said in the statement. "Too many Americans, especially minorities, are suffering because of a lack of leadership by the Obama administration."
Youssef added: "Newt's concrete ideas to turn our economy around will create jobs and allow people to start supporting their families again. Every individual without a job would rather cash a paycheck than have food stamps in their wallet. Newt wants all Americans to have the opportunity to find a job.
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