In 1980, Margaret Walker reflected on what it would take to elect a Black man from Mississippi to Congress for the first time since Reconstruction.
"Our Black history in Mississippi is a proud and glorious one. After the end of Black Reconstruction the great Black Protest Movement began and despite lynching, poll tax, white demagoguery of the Billbos and Vardamans, despite Senator Eastland, we have won our rights and we have learned our political lessons. A state that can send 17 men to the State House and elect Black mayors, Black constables, Black officials on every level–that state can elect a Black Congressman."
Mississippi elected its first Black Congressman from Mississippi in 1987. During Reconstruction, Mississippi also had two Black United States Senators, Hiram Revels and Blanche K. Bruce. When Barack Obama was elected to the United States Senate in 2005, he was the 5th Black U.S. Senator in American history. Two of those had been from Mississippi.