For the closing ad of his US Senate campaign, Democrat Scott Colom stood in the driveway of the house that once belonged to Medgar Evers, the civil rights leader who was assassinated by a white supremacist in 1963 while holding T-shirts that said “Jim Crow Must Go.”
asserted
Crow → close → shirts
“He was killed for helping Mississippians vote,” said Colom.
asserted
Colom → kill → ?
“On Tuesday, use your vote and honor everyone who died for that right.”
asserted
who → use → right
Now Colom, in a fitting tribute to Evers, has made history as the first Black US senator from Mississippi since Reconstruction.
asserted
Colom → make → Reconstruction
The longtime district attorney is also the first Black candidate to win any statewide office in Mississippi since Reconstruction.
asserted
attorney → win → Reconstruction
His shocking upset victory in a state where Donald Trump won by 23 points in 2024 is even more remarkable considering Mississippi’s history.
asserted
Trump → win → history
It was where Emmett Till was lynched, Evers was assassinated, and the young civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner were murdered by the Ku Klux Klan.
asserted
workers → lynch → Klan
“Just to mention Mississippi, to cross the state line from Alabama and go there, it just created all types of problems in my own mind,” the late congressman and civil rights activist John Lewis once said.
asserted
congressman → mention → mind
“It seemed like when you just drove over the state line, something happened to the air, to the environment.
asserted
something → seem → environment
But to go to Mississippi at the time was worse than hell.”
asserted
go → go → hell
Before the passage of the Voting Rights Act, only 6.7 percent of eligible Black voters were registered to vote in Mississippi.
asserted
percent → register → Mississippi
Now, more than 60 years later, it was Black voters who turned out in record numbers to rewrite the history books, motivated in part by a new struggle to protect voting rights.
asserted
who → turn → rights
As was the case across the South, the Supreme Court’s demolition of the Voting Rights Act in the Louisiana v. Callais decision spurred Black voters to cast their ballots at a historic rate.
asserted
demolition → spur → rate
Following the decision, Mississippi Republican Gov. Tate Reeves called on the legislature to pass a new map sometime before 2027 that would oust Rep. Bennie Thompson, the only Black member of Congress from the state.
asserted
that → follow → state
Thompson earned national prominence as chair of the US House committee investigating the January 6 attacks.
asserted
Thompson → earn → attacks
Echoing the racist rhetoric white segregationists used to attack Black voting power during Reconstruction, Reeves announced that Thompson’s “reign of terror” would soon be over.
asserted
reign → echo → terror
After Reeves’ announcement, thousands of civil rights supporters, including Colom, rallied in Jackson in protest.
asserted
thousands → include → protest
“That was an incredible example of the level of anger and frustration and energy that exists here in Mississippi and across the South in response to the Callais decision,” says Amir Badat, a Mississippi native who serves as the Southern states director for Fair Fight Action, the voting rights group founded by Stacey Abrams.
asserted
who → exist → Abrams
“All of the energy that we saw among Mississippians, in particular among Black Mississippians, fed directly into the turnout that we saw for this election…
asserted
we → see → election
People were able to make that direct connection between maps and the issues that affect them on a day-to-day basis.”
asserted
that → make → basis
Colom turned the impending loss of Black representation—in the state with the largest percentage of Black people in the country—into a rallying cry on the campaign trail.
asserted
Colom → turn → trail
“They want to try to go back where our vote and our voice doesn’t matter,” he said.
asserted
he → want → ?
“And thank god our ancestors gave us the one power we need in this moment…the power to vote.”
asserted
we → thank → moment
The Black share of the electorate increased by three points in Mississippi from 2024 to 2026—enough to make the difference for Colom in a race decided by just a few thousand votes.
asserted
share → increase → votes
According to exit polling by CNN, Colom won 27 percent of the white vote but 97 percent of the Black vote.
uncertain
Colom → accord → vote
In majority-Black counties in Mississippi, turnout reached 87.4 percent of 2024 levels compared to 73.8 percent in majority-white counties, the largest gap in the South, according to data compiled by Tom Bonier, a senior adviser with the Democratic data firm TargetSmart.
uncertain
turnout → reach → firm
In recent elections, Black turnout lagged behind white turnout in the South—in 2026, that trend was reversed.
asserted
trend → lag → 2026
Mississippi voters cited “democracy” as their second most important issue in the campaign, after the economy, and those voters broke for Colom by a 2-1 margin.
asserted
voters → cite → margin
“Black voters recognized that the 2026 midterm election quite literally was an existential moment for our democracy,” says Charles Taylor, executive director of the Mississippi NAACP.
asserted
Taylor → recognize → NAACP
“So you saw that play out where now we have made history 150 years in the making.”
asserted
we → see → making
Even before the Callais decision, Taylor commissioned a poll during Mississippi’s primary in March asking Black voters if they’d rather have a candidate prioritize protecting their rights or lowering costs.
asserted
candidate → commission → costs
Three-quarters said protecting their rights.
asserted
quarters → say → rights
Taylor said the Mississippi NAACP raised four times as much money this year compared to previous election cycles, allowing them to make an “absolutely unprecedented” investment in organizing that included opening 11 voter registration field offices, registering more than 17,000 new voters, knocking on 150,000 doors in 40 counties, sending 700,000 mailers, and 1.4 million text messages.
asserted
that → say → messages
“We told people that we needed them to vote,” Taylor said, “and Scott did a great job convincing them that he was the one to vote for.”
asserted
he → tell → them
Colom’s campaign had to overcome the state’s many demons from the past while inspiring a new way forward that embraced, rather than rejected, multiracial democracy.
asserted
that → have → democracy
He won Hinds County, where Evers lived, by 61 points.
asserted
Evers → win → points
He won Sunflower County, the home of notorious segregationist former Senator James Eastland, by 52 points.
asserted
He → win → points
He won Leflore County, where Till was lynched, by 51 points.
asserted
Till → win → points
He flipped Forrest County, named after KKK founder Nathan Bedford Forrest.
asserted
He → flip → Forrest
He lost Neshoba County, where Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner were murdered, but improved upon Kamala Harris’ numbers by 28 points.
asserted
Chaney → lose → points
…and 26 more, not listed.
The Aporia
