Senate race thrusts ‘Black America’s church’ into spotlight

For decades, the redbrick Gothic Revival church where Martin Luther King Jr. once preached has been a monument to the history of Black Americans’ fight for civil rights and the legacy of an activist icon.

But it was a high-stakes Senate race and a Trump-era cultural debate that thrust Ebenezer Baptist Church into the center of the current political debate.

Its senior pastor, Raphael Warnock, was elected to the Senate after a runoff election that gave Democrats control of Congress in the first years of the administration of President Joe Biden. Warnock’s preaching became a focal point in the debate about race and justice during the election.