Warnock to delegates: 'Keep the faith'

In the opening session of the AFT’s 2026 convention, delegates heard a rousing speech from the Rev. Raphael Warnock, U.S. senator from Georgia, who emphasized the value of public education in his own life. Focusing on the importance of good public policy and investment in education from early childhood through college, Warnock called out the “poverty of moral imagination” that has led the Trump administration to spend money on “billionaire tax cuts” and “an illegal war of choice in Iran” instead of on nurturing young minds. He brought delegates to their feet as he exhorted them to keep the faith in the fight for a better life for all.

Warnock knows from personal experience that teachers have the power to change lives. He described himself as the “proud product of good public education,” a “Head Start kid” who grew up in public housing with his parents and 11 siblings. One of his earliest heroes was the principal of his high school, Gwen Goodman, who knew every student’s name and who inspired Warnock with her large vocabulary and her high standards. “Every time I was in her presence, I wanted to grow a little bit taller,” he said. She encouraged him to go to Morehouse College, following in the footsteps of Martin Luther King Jr. 

Warnock’s parents sent him off to college with a lot of love and faith—but no money. When he graduated four years later, “cum laude and thank you, Lordy,” as he put it, it was the result of a lot of grit and determination, but also of policies and public investments in higher education, including Pell Grants, low-interest student loans and work-study programs. Warnock’s path from Head Start kid to Morehouse student to pastor of Martin Luther King Jr.’s former church and now to U.S. senator wouldn’t have been possible without those investments. But he recognizes that today, the path is a lot harder than it was in his own childhood because of the Trump administration’s policies. 

That’s what keeps Warnock up at night, but it also keeps him fighting because he knows that we have a shared responsibility to one another, and to all of our children: “We’re tied in a single garment of destiny, Dr. King taught us, caught up in an inescapable network of mutuality. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly,” Warnock said. His own children will never know the difficulties he faced in his childhood, but they “will not be OK unless other people’s children are OK.”

According to Warnock, it’s essential that we “keep the faith” and fight for every child in the U.S.—including by standing up to a president who traffics in conspiracy theories and clings to “an old order that knows it’s on its way out.”

Warnock asked the cheering crowd: “Are you ready to show up for all of our children? You keep showing up, and we will win come November.”

[Sharone Carmona/Photo credit: Pamela Wolfe]