Raphael Warnock and the Solitude of the Black Senator
The Georgia pastor will be just the 11th Black U.S. senator. His victory came amid an attempt to delegitimize election results — a pattern for more than 150 years.
In The New York Times Magazine, I examine the history Black senators in the United States that leads to this question: “Beneath the veneer of competing readings of the Constitution lay the unavoidable question that continues to test America’s first principles: Can a democracy shaped by Black participation be legitimate?”