Mississippi elects Democrat Colom as state’s first post-Civil War Black senator

Democratic nominee Scott Colom defeated Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith on Wednesday in Mississippi’s closely contested US Senate race after a prolonged ballot counting process, giving the state its first Black US senator since post-Civil War Reconstruction. Colom’s narrow victory is a seismic shift in Mississippi, which has been controlled mostly by white conservatives for generations despite having the largest share of Black residents of any US state.