Lee Jasper first Black Deputy Mayor of London writes on Georgia
The word "historic" is much abused term however the election to the American Senate of the Democratic candidate Rev Raphael Warnock, senior preacher at the Ebenezer Baptist church, Georgia, the very church Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jr once preached, is truly a hugely symbolic and historic event.
Set against the backdrop of the Presidential elections, Trumps increasingly psychotic bordering on demented denial of the electoral victory of Biden and Harris, and the finely tuned balance of power that would be determined by its outcome, made the Georgia state run-off elections a fight for the very heart and soul of America.
If you were told in October of last year that Joe Biden and Kamilla Harris would beat President Trump by the exact same margin of victory, Trump secured in his 2016 of Hilary Clinton, would receive 7 million more popular votes than Trump, and that the Democrats would seize control of the Senate and Congress by defeating the Republican Party in Georgia, no doubt you would have thought such a scenario was ludicrous in the extreme. Yet here we are today with that prospect very much becoming a reality
That this victory should take place in the birthplace of Dr King in a state considered the historic cornerstone state of the Confederacy is simply breath-taking.
The late, great Langtson Hughes, the glorious African-American poet and civil rights activists summarising the state of Jim Crow racism in 1950s America said of Georgia, "As long as what is is-and Georgia is Georgia-I will take Harlem for mine. At least, if trouble comes, I will have my own window to shoot from." Equating Georgia with the industrial level of apartheid racism that characterised the American South, Langston cited the state as a hell on earth for black people.
And in 1939 when Billie Holiday song ‘Strange Fruits’ the classic haunting melody that invoked barbaric practice of the public lynching of African Americans, set around the centre piece of family picnics, and the drinking of iced tea among the sweet magnolias and poplar trees, no doubt she had Georgia on her mind.
In flipping this archetypal Republican state, Warnock has not only fulfilled his own personal ambition to represent the good folks of Georgia and oppose the toxic politics of the white supremacist in chief, but he also more fully fulfilled both the promise and the dream of Dr King. He has demonstrated the power and potency of African American push back against the politics of white supremacy, injustice and institutionalised racism. Once again black church returning to its radical campaigning tradition has shown the world the majesty of organised, mobilised black power of the African-American vote.
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Rev Warnock invoked the spirit of the civil rights pioneers when paying tribute to his mother when he said, “The other day, because this is America, the 82-year-old hands that used to pick somebody else's cotton went to the polls and picked her youngest son to be a United States senator."
As stunning as this victory is, it is still hard to believe that in 2021 he is only the 11th African American senator to be elected in American history and one of those is President Obama and another is Vice President elect Kamala Harris.
The Biden Harris plan for racial equity, if delivered, will be the equivalent of President Obama’s healthcare policy and in many ways racial equity is a healthcare issue for generations of African Americans. Add to Warnock's victory the election of Vice President elect Kamala Harris you really get a sense that the tectonic plates in America have finally shifted with the weight of the African American vote fracturing the previous terra firma of the white male dominated mainstream political landscape.
No article written on this subject could fail to mention the recently departed, late Congressman John Robert Lewis whose enduring civil rights legacy and pioneering work on seeking to push through the Voting Rights Amendment Act in an effort to end the scandal of widespread back voter suppression, could now finally be passed into law. What a fitting tribute to this legend's legacy that would be.
In Lambeth in 1996 after a number of deaths in police custody huge demonstration was held in the central Brixton. I like that demonstration was later attacked by the police. As a result, and working with others, Lord Simon Woolley and Derek Hinds will work diligently on the Joy Gardner campaign, decided we have seen enough of black bodies being beaten and bloodied by police truncheons. In response and inspired by the work of Dr King and the civil rights movement we formed Operation Black Vote to encourage Black voter registration and democratic participation as a means of resisting racism and improving conditions of British black communities.
I hope that the victory in Georgia demonstrates beyond reasonable doubt that every single black vote counts, and that we as a people are capable of changing the course of history, even in the face of the most overwhelming and seemingly unsurmountable odds.
As Congressman John Lewis famously said, "Ours is not the struggle of one day, one week, or one year. Ours is not the struggle of one judicial appointment or presidential term. Ours is the struggle of a lifetime, or maybe even many lifetimes, and each one of us in every generation must do our part."
And, here in Britain, where we hold similar strategic power in many inner city and metropolitan areas, voting at full force we decide who wins elections. We should all reflect on Rev Warnock’s hugely important victory as the former majority leader of the House, Republican Senator Mitch McConnell, waits for the midnight train to Georgia.
Black America has arrived and there’s no going back.
