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Yesterday CNN declared Scott Colom the winner in the race for the Senate seat in Mississippi. One of their political pundits, it’s important to recognize him as a Black man, talked about the long history that came before and the people who paved the roads to make this possible. Another, a GOP strategist and often apologist for Trump then criticized him, basically saying how dare you, how dare you undermine the work of Scott Colom by bringing up the past. I need to say both are true: Scott Colom ran an incredible campaign, he and his crew worked hard and worked brilliantly. And I have no doubt that were Scott Colom sitting beside me he’d say the same: yes, he worked hard and there is NO way he would have succeeded without the work of those who came before him.
I’d like to give a brief history about the fight for voting rights in Mississippi. What I’m about to recount is also true of many other states in the deep south.
May 7, 1955, Bilzoni, MS: George Lee, a minister, was murdered after he refused to give up his fight for voting rights
September 25, 1961, Liberty, MS: Herbert Lee, who worked with Bob Moses to register Black voters, was killed by state legislator
June 12, 1963, Jackson, MS: Medgar Evers was shot and killed by a sniper in front of his home
January 31, 1964, Liberty, MS: Louis Allen, who witnessed the September 25, 1961 murder of Herbert Lee was killed
June 21, 1964, Philadelphia, MS: It’s not clear when the murders actually occurred. This is the date of the most infamous of the Mississippi voting rights murders. James Earl Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Henry Schwerner were returning to Meridian, MS after having spent time investigating the burning of a church near Philadelphia, MS. They were arrested and then disappeared. This became national news as the search continued to find them. Likely a big part of the attention came because Goodman and Schwener were white. There was an extended search, that included the FBI, before their bodies were found on August 4, 1964
January 10, 1966, Hattiesburg, MS: Vernon Ferdinand Dahmer died after suffering burns when his home was firebombed. His offense? Offering to pay poll taxes for those who couldn’t afford the fee to vote
It’s important to also remember Fannie Lou Hamer. On June 9, 1963 she was nearly beaten to death in Winona, MS. She was returning from a voter registration workshop in South Carolina. She lost the vision in one eye and suffered permanent kidney damage. She died at age 59, her life likely cut short because of the injuries she sustained during the beating. Yet she didn’t back down. She continued the fight, the right, to achieve voting rights for Black people in the south. She famously said “I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired.”
Today, with the election of Scott Colom I’m thinking a lot of us are a bit less sick and tired.
Want to be entertained? This ad from the Colom campaign is one of the best ever!
The Ugliness is the Hope, but only if we embrace the rage and act.
Resist. Persist. Oppose. Propose. Be the opposition with a proposition.
This was originally published at davidvalade.blog
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