Mississippi!Mississippi is near and dear to my heart. I have been watching the updates on the Senate race with bated breath. People often overlook Black Mississippi or talk about the state only in negative terms. The history is painful. Nina Simone wrote "Mississippi Goddam" in a rush after she "suddenly realized what it was to be Black in America in 1963." Consider the murders of young Emmett Till, NAACP field secretary Medgar Evers, and civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner. Consider James Meredith, who integrated the University of Mississippi in 1962 and was shot four years later while marching across the state. These were among the most publicized acts of racial violence in Mississippi during the 1950s and 1960s. Mississippi recorded more lynchings than any other state, and it stood at the epicenter of the Jim Crow South. What often gets missed is what Black Mississippians have given this country. The blues rose out of the Mississippi Delta and became the root of so much American music. Richard Wright wrote the truth of Black life onto the national page, and Fannie Lou Hamer and Ida B. Wells-Barnett called the nation to account for its sins. When Frank Williams gathered singers from church choirs across the state to form the Mississippi Mass Choir, their voices carried the faith of Black Mississippi to stages around the world. From what is called the nation's poorest state, generations of Black Mississippians have shaped the sound and the conscience of America. Countless everyday people have quietly made a difference in their own communities. A post by historian Jemar Tisby says exactly how I feel. He wrote: Black Mississippi is usually discussed as a victim of democracy's failures. In reality, it should be studied as a source of democratic expertise. Scott Colom said it plainly during his campaign: "Mississippi has never been a lost cause, we've been a betrayed cause." The organizers who built this win had no promise it would come. The Black church and ordinary voters worked for political dignity in their own time anyway. He closes the post: "I lived in Jackson and became a historian in Mississippi, and it changed the way I understood America." Tisby says the historic election of Scott Colom as Mississippi's first Black U.S. senator since Reconstruction deserves more than admiration. The rest of America, and perhaps the world, should learn from Black Mississippi. The brilliance and beauty of Mississippi must not be overlooked. I have met grassroots organizers who built relationship after relationship in Mississippi when no one was paying attention. These everyday people built power while being overlooked and ignored by so many. I say all of this to lift up how important it is to stay faithful to the work, even when the world thinks you are crazy for believing you can make a difference. What looks impossible to the human eye is possible with God and with persistence. Mississippi is showing us how to work with the long game in view. The South still has something to say, and the rest of the nation would do well to listen. Take a moment to listen to Frank Williams and the Mississippi Mass Choir sing 'Your Grace and Mercy.’ – Rev. Moya Harris, Senior Director of Programs, Sojourners | 
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