On Wednesday, Mississippi’s Senate race was officially called for Democrat Scott Colom, who will become the first Black person to represent the state in the US Senate since Reconstruction, more than 140 years ago. Colom’s win is a stunning, historic upset — and for many Black Democrats, like Rep. Bennie Thompson, it’s been a long time coming.
Thompson, who also won his race last week, has represented Mississippi’s majority-Black Second Congressional District since 1993. Over the years, the 78-year-old lawmaker has frequently invoked the story of his father, who was never able to cast a vote because of racist Jim Crow laws that enforced segregation until the mid-1960s.
I sat down with Thompson for Today, Explained to talk about Colom’s run for Senate, how he won, what it means for Thompson personally.
Below is an excerpt of our conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full podcast, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.
Your dad was never able to cast a vote during his lifetime because of Jim Crow laws. And I wonder, growing up in Mississippi, what did you learn about who was allowed to participate in democracy?
You were a second-class citizen. That means you could go to school, but you couldn’t go to school with the white kids. Or the one swimming pool in town was for white kids, and the Black kids had to swim in the creeks or the ponds around the community. No lifeguard, no anything. My mama and daddy paid taxes, but they weren’t allowed to vote. My uncle fought in World War II; defended democracy all over the world, but when he came back home, he had to ride a segregated train behind the white German prisoners.
Jesus.
So you had the white soldiers, the white German prisoners, and the Black soldiers. And that was the order of the day. It was something that we grew up with.
When you were young, I wonder, did you associate the right to vote with the ability to change things? Like, if we get to cast a ballot, then we get to fix this mess?
The best thing that I can say is I went to Tougaloo College [near Jackson, Mississippi]. And on that college campus, I met Martin Luther King Jr., I met Stokely Carmichael, I met Harry Belafonte, I met Sammy Davis Jr. — all of the major civil rights icons of the day.
That was how we cut our teeth into civil rights and voting rights. The first campaign I worked on was Mrs. Hamer’s campaign for Congress.
Fannie Lou Hamer, the civil rights icon.
And I now represent that district.
But I remember telling my mother that, oh, I had gone to Ruleville, Mississippi, to help register Black people to vote for Congress. And my mama said, “Well, I don’t know why you way up there.” Said, “Black people don’t vote here in Bolton.” And so it hit me. And Lord have mercy. In my own hometown, you know, I was in the same situation. And we did voter registration. We did all kind of things.
“For me, having gone through those life experiences and now to see a Scott come along, you know, it not only brings tears to your eye, but it also says that there’s hope.”
We brought Head Start to the community, and started understanding that real freedom comes with political freedom. And so we started holding meetings about what we wanted to do. We decided to run three people for the board and the three African Americans won.
But it really wasn’t a good four years on that term because the current mayor didn’t want any progress. So we ran an all-Black slate: mayor, clerk, alderman. We won every position.
We’re talking about 50 years ago, and all these challenges that you faced, all these challenges to being able to vote, being able to assume office, being able to function as a mayor in a town that is so segregated. Fifty years later, Scott Colom is winning in Mississippi.
I want to ask you to reflect on when you became aware of his candidacy and what you thought about the potential there.
One of the challenges that I’ve had to deal with is that every time I run for public office, I’ve always been the first. But I wanted to create some kind of vehicle to get other people engaged. So we formed the Mississippi Black Leadership Institute. Well, Scott Colom was in the first class. And he really said, “I want to run for something. I don’t know what it is.” He said, “But there’s a district attorney’s position that’s available. It’s three counties.”
We helped Scott put his campaign together. We hooked him up with various people, and he beat a 28-year incumbent as district attorney.
Why do you think he won?
Well, because he had the fire in the belly. And he never met a stranger. And so we prepared him, and he’s one of our star pupils of that class. And look, uh, when the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee would not support him, they—
They would not support him.
They would not support him. But this was my — Bennie Thompson’s position is that Northeasterners were still looking down on Southerners.
Well, did you call them up and scream at Chuck Schumer or somebody and say, “Guys, I am telling you, we got one here who can win?”
Look, we did everything that the system says you should do. We gave the demographics. That district [Colom] represented was not a majority-African American district. He beat that sitting district attorney in a majority-white district because he had a plan and he had a message. We had a rich message, but a poor campaign. Because we couldn’t get our DSCC to help.
Have you called any of those people in national leadership and said, “I told you so?”
Oh yeah. All of a sudden, the week before the election, they’re going to say, “Well, we’re going to be able to do this, but we’re going to shoot the spot and we’ll send it to you.” So you really didn’t give us the money. You know what I’m saying?
So that’s all right. We’re going to keep doing our low budget, social media-attractive thing. And so it took off.
You are 78 years old? Do I have that right?
Yep.
This has been most of your life. The fight for this has been most of your life.
Yep.
You sit here today, we sit here today. Where is your head at in all of this? Did you lock yourself in the bathroom and cry for 10 minutes?
No question. I’m happy for Scott personally. His trajectory is tremendous. But you know, it’s been a tough journey. We had a poll tax put on us that we had to pay money to be a registered voter. We had to interpret sections of the Constitution. In many instances when my mama registered — my mama had a college degree, she was a teacher — but the person who asked her to interpret the Constitution was an elementary school graduate. You see what I’m saying?
I sure do.
And so for me, having gone through those life experiences and now to see a Scott come along, you know, it not only brings tears to your eye, but it also says that there’s hope. There’s hope for young African Americans that at some point, the choice will be, do I stay or leave? It won’t be, “Well, when I get an education, I have to go somewhere else to seek a career.”
And so that’s the exciting part. I’m just really happy. And for a guy who’s been in it over 50 years and been called everything but a child of God, because I’m trying to elevate people who look like me to where I know if they have it, they’ll do a great job. So for Bennie Thompson, Scott’s victory is a dream come true.
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