Georgia election 2026: Governor-elect Bottoms speaks at historic Atlanta church

Governor-elect Keisha Lance Bottoms, the first Black woman in American history to be elected governor, spoke at a place of worship renowned as “America’s Freedom Church.”

Bottoms attended morning services at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, being met with a rousing reception.

Channel 2’s Bryan Mims was at the church in Atlanta’s Sweet Auburn district, the same house of worship that birthed the civil rights movement.

For Bottoms and the church’s pastor, U.S. Sen. Rev. Raphael Warnock, it was an emotional moment.

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Warnock is the first Black U.S. Senator from Georgia.

At the church, Bottoms entered the sanctuary with her husband and other members of the family to pray and commune where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. preached and organized his movement to demand racial justice in America.

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Warnock introduced Bottoms to the congregation as the great-great granddaughter of slaves, one who has now risen to the highest office in a state where slavery, and then segregation, were enshrined in law for most of its 238-year history.

Bottoms spoke to those gathered for prayer, saying this was the most expensive governor’s race, saying that despite the challenge of running against Rick Jackson, a billionaire, “Our God supplied all of our needs.”

The newly-minted governor-elect also said the reason she ran for the office was because “God told me to.”

At the service, the audience included special guests from homes far away from Georgia.

A class of eighth graders from Graland Country Day School in Denver, Colo. were at the church as part of a Civil Rights tour of the South, starting in Atlanta before going to Birmingham and Selma in Alabama and Memphis, Tenn.

The students were there to see the nation’s first Black female governor, where the civil rights movement got started.

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