The November 2010 midterm elections did a little more than bring in a new wave of Republicans under the Tea Party banner and removed Democratic incumbents from office. It also ushered in a new age reminiscent of the Senate after Reconstruction.
Unfortunately, what has also occurred is that the United States Senate will not have a single member who is African American.
All three black senatorial candidates, Kendrick Meek, D-Fla.; Alvin Greene, D-S.C.; and Mike Thurmond D-Ga., lost in November and the only one serving presently, Roland Burris, D-Ill.; is retiring after a scandal regarding how he obtained the seat.
“This is a matter of national importance.There are no African Americans in the Senate, and I don’t think that anyone, any U.S. senator who’s sitting in the Senate right now, want to go on record to deny one African American from being seated in the U.S. Senate. I don’t think they want to go on record doing that,” said Congressman Bobby Rush, D-Ill., of threats to not seat Burris two years ago.
In recent decades, there have been six black senators including three Republicans and three Democrats. Barack Obama was only the third black senator to serve since Reconstruction. The other two were Carole Moseley Braun and Edward Brooke.
Hiram Rhoades Revels and Blanche K. Bruce, both from Mississippi, were the only two black senators elected in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War.
Obama’s election may have been a major breakthrough for racial politics in America. But we still are very much underrepresented — if represented at all — in the U.S. Senate, since it is almost 2011 and no African American serves within its halls. –torrance stephens, ph.d.
