On June 21, 1964, Klansmen murdered James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner in Mississippi. The three were working to register Black voters. Their bodies were found 44 days later in an earthen dam. This week, relatives of two of them watched Mississippi elect a Black man to the U.S. Senate.
Democrat Scott Colom, the district attorney for Mississippi’s 16th Judicial District, defeated Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, 49.2% to 48.7%, once the last absentee and provisional ballots were counted. The Associated Press called the race more than a week after the Nov. 3 vote. Colom will be the first Black senator from Mississippi since Reconstruction and the first Democrat the state has sent to the Senate since 1982. Donald Trump carried Mississippi by nearly 23 points in 2024.
Angela Lewis, James Chaney’s daughter, told Democracy Now what she thought the result meant. “I believe that people were voting for help,” she said. “And they evidently saw something in Mr. Colom that made them feel like that they could hope again.” David Goodman, Andrew Goodman’s brother, said: “The people of Mississippi have spoken. And we have to cease and desist this divide-and-conquer business.”
Hyde-Smith is the senator who said in 2018, about a supporter, “If he invited me to a public hanging, I’d be on the front row.” She won that year’s runoff anyway. Mississippi has the largest share of Black residents of any state, and for more than 140 years none of them was sent to the Senate.
Hyde-Smith conceded in a two-minute video. “While this is not the outcome we worked for or hoped for, I respect the decision of Mississippi voters,” she said. At his victory rally, Colom said: “I make a solemn commitment to each and every Mississippian tonight. In every decision I make, I will never forget that the most important thing is: Mississippi matters.”
The margin is thin, and a seat won this narrowly in a state Trump carried by 23 points was won by people who had every reason to expect Mississippi to ignore them. Goodman’s call to stop the divide-and-conquer is the right test for what comes next. Colom’s is one of eight Republican-held Senate seats Democrats flipped this year, and Black Mississippians should expect him to answer to them on voting rights, health care and policing. The senator-elect takes the oath in January.
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