Mississippi Just Elected A Black Senator, And Somewhere The Ghost Of Jim Crow Is Looking For Its Blood Pressure Medication

Someone needs to check Jim Crow’s sugar after learning that for the first time since Reconstruction, Mississippi has elected a Black man to the United States Senate. 

Let that marinate for a minute. Let that cook on slow. Let the heat from that revelation sit on the back of your neck like a Mississippi summer sun. 

Mississippi. The state that helped write the instruction manual for American racism. The state that took racism from a casual pastime to a fully funded, government-sponsored enterprise. The state that has historically served as the training ground where quasi-racists could earn their certification to become official racists.

And now, Mississippi has elected Scott Colom, a Black man, to represent it in the United States Senate.

Somewhere, the ghosts of Jim Crow are looking for the number to their cardiologist.

Colom’s victory over Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith is historic for reasons that go well beyond the color of the winner’s skin. He is the first Black senator chosen by Mississippi voters since Reconstruction, following Hiram Revels and Blanche K. Bruce, who served during the post-Civil War era. It is also the first time Mississippi has elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1982.

And if you understand even a little bit about Mississippi’s history, you understand why this moment deserves more than a congratulatory tweet and a couple of celebratory cable news segments.

Mississippi isn’t just another Southern state with a complicated racial history. It is a state where that history is practically baked into the foundation. From slavery and the Confederacy to the murderous enforcement of Jim Crow, from the Freedom Summer murders to the violent resistance against Black political participation, Mississippi has been one of America’s most enduring examples of what happens when white supremacy and political power get married and have children.

This is the state where Black people fought, bled, and died simply trying to exercise the right to vote. This is the state where civil rights workers were murdered for registering Black voters. This is the state where the political machinery was built to ensure that Black Mississippians could never translate their numbers into meaningful political power.

And now, those same voters have helped send a Black man to the United States Senate.

Excuse me while I pick my jaw up off the floor.

But here’s what makes Colom’s victory particularly interesting: Mississippi didn’t suddenly become a different state overnight. Donald Trump carried it by nearly 23 points in 2024. Republicans have dominated its statewide politics for decades. This wasn’t some progressive utopia waiting for the right candidate to come along.

There are lessons to be learned here around grassroots politicking. 

Colom won by taking his campaign to the people, visiting all 82 counties and talking about the issues that mattered to voters. His campaign focused on economic concerns, including rising food and gas prices. The people got to know him. Got to come out and hear his message and his humor.

One of his ads turned Hyde-Smith’s response to a question about rising beef prices- that Mississippians should “pick another protein”– into a viral campaign moment. Apparently, telling people struggling with grocery bills to consider alternative proteins wasn’t the political masterstroke somebody thought it was.

Who knew people wanted to afford groceries?

But the larger lesson is that Mississippi’s political revolt cannot be reduced to the stereotypes that have followed it for generations. Black voters remain a powerful political constituency in the state, and Colom’s victory also reflected support from younger voters and some white moderates and conservatives.

That matters because the South is often written off as if its political future has already been decided. As if it’s a given that the region is destined to remain a Republican stronghold.

Colom’s election complicates that narrative.

It’s proof that ice always thaws and that political history, despite being shaped by years of racial animus, is not frozen in time. People can change. Minds can change. Coalitions can change. Political assumptions can be challenged. 

Which brings us to the Democratic Party.

For years, Democrats have talked about the South as a political problem to be solved someday, usually after another election, another fundraising cycle, and another consultant has been paid six figures to explain why the region is too difficult to compete in.

Meanwhile, Mississippi has been sitting right there.

Black voters have repeatedly demonstrated their willingness to participate in elections, organize their communities and influence outcomes. The question has never simply been whether Black Southerners would show up. It has also been whether political institutions would invest in them, listen to them, and build campaigns that recognize their concerns extend beyond election-day turnout.

Colom’s victory is an opportunity to revisit those assumptions.

And for America, there is something particularly consequential about this happening in Mississippi. The state that became synonymous with some of the country’s ugliest racial violence has now produced a historic political breakthrough that deserves to be understood on its own terms.

This isn’t an erasure of history. It isn’t evidence that racism has packed its bags and moved to another zip code. Mississippi still has serious challenges involving poverty, education, healthcare, and racial inequality. It ranks near the top as one of the poorest states in the country. One election cannot undo centuries of discrimination, and one senator cannot single-handedly repair the damage.

But progress doesn’t require pretending the past never happened. Sometimes progress means acknowledging exactly what happened and recognizing that the people who inherited that history are still capable of changing what comes next.

Scott Colom is now headed to Washington as a representative of a state that once went to extraordinary lengths to prevent Black people from voting. And he is doing so with the votes of Mississippians who decided that history was not going to make their decision for them.

That’s bigger than a Senate seat.

That’s Mississippi telling America that its past may explain the state, but it does not get to dictate its future.

And somewhere, the Confederacy is still trying to figure out how this happened.

SEE ALSO:

Black Democrat Scott Colom Wins Mississippi Senate Race

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