It took 145 years for Mississippi to elect an African-American senator again. Almost a century and a half, in one of the American states with the highest percentage of black population and where the fight for civil rights has left some of the deepest wounds in the history of the United States.
Breaking this very long void is Scott Colom, 43 years old, Democrat, lawyer and former prosecutor, who won a seat in the Senate by beating Cindy Hyde-Smith, a Republican close to Donald Trump, in one of the most conservative states in America.
Colom not only brought the Democrats back to the Senate for Mississippi after over forty years: he broke a racial barrier that had stood since the end of the 19th century, talking about wages, healthcare and daily difficulties, managing to convince even a part of traditionally Republican voters.
Who is Scott Colom
Born in Columbus, Mississippi, Scott Colom comes from a family of lawyers. In 2015 he became the first African American elected district attorney in the 16th judicial district of Mississippi, a territory that also includes predominantly white counties.
Among the most important cases he has dealt with is that of Eddie Lee Howardan African American man who had spent 26 years on death row for murder. In 2021, after the evidence supporting the accusation collapsed, Howard was freed and Colom confirmed the prosecutor’s decision not to proceed further. In 2022 Joe Biden had chosen him for a position as a federal judge, but it was he who hindered his nomination Cindy Hyde Smithwho had contested some of his political positions and the funding received for a previous election campaign.
Four years later, the two found themselves against each other. This time, however, it was the voters who decided.
Mississippi and those 145 years of waiting
To understand how important this election is, we need to go back to the second half of the nineteenth century. Mississippi was one of the states symbolizing slavery and racial segregation. Yet, in the years following the American Civil War, during the so-called Reconstructionsucceeded in sending two African American men to the Senate.
The first was Hiram Rhodes Revelswho in 1870 became the first black senator in U.S. history. Then it arrived Blanche K. Bruceborn into slavery and subsequently elected for a full term, from 1875 to 1881. After him, nothing more.
With the end of Reconstruction, the return to power of segregationist elites and the introduction of laws that hindered the right of black citizens to vote, that brief season of political representation was progressively erased.
Mississippi would later become one of the central locations of the civil rights movement, but also the scene of racist violence and political assassinations. Among the victims there was Medgar EversWorld War II veteran and racial equality activist, murdered in 1963 by a white supremacist linked to the Ku Klux Klan.
It is no coincidence that Colom chose to remember him in one of the last videos of his electoral campaign. In the land where men like Evers paid for the demand for equality with their lives, today an African American conquers one of the most important seats in American politics.
From healthcare to artificial intelligence: what Colom wants to change
Colom’s program revolves above all around the economic difficulties of families in Mississippi, one of the American states with the lowest income levels. Among his proposals are raising the minimum wage, a reduction in federal taxes for those earning less than $75,000 a year and greater public health protections. He also criticized cuts to Medicaid, the health care program for people with limited incomes, and spoke out against the war with Iran, calling for greater congressional control over military decisions.
Then there is a particularly current topic: that of large data centers intended for artificial intelligence.
Colom argues that local communities should be able to decide whether to host these infrastructures and that technology companies should directly bear the costs of the energy and water necessary for their operation, without passing them on to citizens. A position that intertwines technological development, protection of resources and economic justice.
The new face of the American Democrats?
His election comes in the midst of a major Democratic advance in the 2026 midterm elections, which, as we have seen. they tipped the balance of Congress.
The result inevitably sparked speculation about Colom’s political future. There are already those who imagine him among the possible protagonists of the 2028 presidential elections, but he – at least for now – does not seem interested and has reiterated that he wants to work for Mississippi and for the people who elected him.
In a state where for generations the color of one’s skin determined who had the right to vote and who did not, who could be elected and who could not and even who could enter certain places, Scott Colom’s victory is not a victory like any other.
