`Only in America': Warnock's rise from poverty to US senator by Russ Bynum, The Associated Press Posted Jan 6, 2021 11:13 am EDT Last Updated Jan 6, 2021 at 11:14 am EDT SAVANNAH, Ga. — Raphael Warnock’s roots showed little promise of a future that led to the U.S. Senate. He grew up in Savannah in the Kayton Homes public housing project, the second youngest of 12 children. His mother as a teenager had worked as a sharecropper picking cotton and tobacco. His father was a preacher who also made money hauling old cars to a local scrapyard. “My daddy used to wake me up every morning at dawn,” Warnock told a hometown crowd at a drive-in rally two days before his election Tuesday. “He said, `Boy, you can’t sleep late in my house. Get up, get dressed, put your shoes on. Get ready.’”