Scott Colom's win in Mississippi puts political change to the test

Mississippi, a state with the largest share of Black residents in the country, has elected its first Black U.S.

senator in nearly 150 years.Why it matters: For generations, Black Mississippians left the state to escape Jim Crow and pursue economic and political opportunities elsewhere.Now, Mississippi faces a new question: Was Scott Colom's victory a once-in-a-generation breakthrough, or the beginning of an era of Black political power?Driving the news: Colom's defeat of incumbent Sen.

Cindy Hyde-Smith broke a barrier that had stood since Reconstruction.Mississippi was the first state to send Black senators to Congress, before violence and disenfranchisement stripped Black residents of their political power.In Colom's race, Democrats gained ground in 75 of the state's 82 counties, Marvin King, an associate professor of political science and African American studies at the University of Mississippi, told Axios."It wasn't just a fluke of super high turnout in one particular region," he said.

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