Black Candidate Takes Mississippi County Named For KKK Founder

Scott Colom, a Black Democrat, is leading Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith in Forrest County, Mississippi, according to early returns. With about 97 percent of votes counted, Colom holds a 54 percent to 44 percent advantage in the county. This represents a 29-point shift toward Democrats compared to the 2024 presidential election, when Donald Trump won the area by a margin of 18 points.

Forrest County is named after Nathan Bedford Forrest. He served as a Confederate general and a slave trader before becoming the first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. The county sits in the Mississippi Delta region and has long been considered a Republican stronghold. The result marks a notable change in voting patterns for the area.

If Colom maintains his narrow lead across the state, he will become the first Black U.S. senator from Mississippi since 1881. That previous senator served during the Reconstruction era. The potential victory would end a 145-year gap in Black representation in the state's Senate seats.

Local history in the county's largest city, Hattiesburg, includes ongoing debates about public monuments. In 2020, voters rejected a proposal to remove a Confederate statue outside the county courthouse. The measure failed with 51 percent of the vote against 49 percent. The statue, built in 1910 by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, remains in place despite support for removal from the majority-Black college town.

Directly across from the Confederate statue stands a monument honoring Vernon Dahmer. Dahmer was a civil rights activist who was murdered in 1966 after the KKK firebombed his home. The monument features his quote, "If you don't vote, you don't count." His wife, Ellie Dahmer, later served as a county election commissioner. Hattiesburg also hosted seven freedom schools during Freedom Summer in 1964, teaching Black children subjects often ignored in segregated schools.

Residents have proposed renaming the county to Forest County by dropping the letter "r." The recent election results show a shift in political preferences, even if the name remains. Colom's lead in the county reflects a change in how voters in this specific region are casting their ballots in the state's Senate race.