Mississippi Hasn't Sent a Black Senator Since 1881

By Dre Essence | Prodigal Breaking News | prodigalbreakingnews.com

The history first

In 1870, Mississippi sent Hiram Revels to Washington as the first Black U.S. senator in American history. Five years later it sent Blanche K. Bruce, who served a full term ending in 1881. Then Reconstruction collapsed, and Mississippi rewrote its constitution in 1890 to strip Black citizens of the vote. Mississippi is 37 percent Black, the largest share of any state, and it hasn't sent a Black senator to Washington in 145 years.

The race now

Scott Colom, 43, is a district attorney in north Mississippi and a former nominee for a federal judgeship. If he beats Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith on November 3, he becomes the first Black senator from Mississippi since Reconstruction. "Not another 150 years," he has said.

Hyde-Smith has refused to debate him. On Monday, President Trump held his first Mississippi rally since 2019, at Crossroads Arena in Corinth. He spoke for more than 80 minutes, called Colom a "Democrat communist" and said he's soft on crime. Hyde-Smith told the crowd the race is a choice between her and a "radical."

Before the rally, Colom told reporters that Trump and Hyde-Smith were "doing too much talking and not enough listening." He calls her "Cindy High Prices" for her comment, when asked about rising beef prices, that Americans have "so many proteins to choose from." He has also criticized her for not pushing harder to release the Epstein files.

National Democrats are paying attention. Kamala Harris and Sen. Raphael Warnock have campaigned with Colom, and a Senate Democratic super PAC put $1.2 million into ads last week. Mississippi hasn't elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1982, and Trump carried the state by nearly 23 points in 2024. It's still an uphill race.

A note on polls: a widely shared poll showing Colom ahead was later called fabricated by the pollster itself, and Newsweek retracted its story. We're not citing horse-race numbers in this race until a verified poll exists.

The pattern

Mississippi didn't stop sending Black senators to Washington because Black Mississippians stopped wanting representation. It stopped because laws were written to keep them from voting. A hundred and forty-five years later, the question on the ballot is the same one Revels and Bruce faced: whether the people who make up more than a third of the state get a voice in the Senate.

Notice the pattern. Interrupt it.

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Sources: Mississippi Today; TheGrio; Democracy Now!; Newsweek (retraction notice); U.S. Senate historical records.