Raphael Warnock: “Madam Vice President, we have been summoned here by history. This is not just another routine day in the Senate. This is…”

“Madam Vice President, we have been summoned here by history. This is not just another routine day in the Senate. This is a moral moment in America. I recall the words of that great American patriot and prophet, Martin Luther King, Jr., whose birthday all of us just observed. As he agonized over the difficulty and complexity of that moral moment, Dr. King said: ``History has thrust something upon me from which I cannot turn away.'' We have been summoned here, all of us. We cannot turn away. This is no time for politics as usual. The times cry out for moral leadership, for integrity, for empathy, and for care for one another, for deep investment in the covenant that we have with one another as an American people. ``E pluribus unum,'' out of many, one--what a grand doctrine, what a noble idea, which our country has been striving to reach with fits and starts with setbacks and comebacks since the day of its founding. This is one of those moments. We cannot turn away. We cannot hide from history. And I am truly honored to stand here with all of you, Democrats, Republicans, and Independents, in this moment. And on this, my 365th day as a Member of the U.S. Senate, the most consequential deliberative body on the planet, striving, again, for greatness. I was elected from Georgia on January 5--what an honor to represent the people of the State of Georgia and what a great Nation, a kid from the Kayton Homes Housing Projects, the first college graduate in my family of 12.…”