Scott Colom celebrates Mississippi Senate win and salutes civil rights movement

By Annie Grayer, Piper Hudspeth Blackburn, Tori B. Powell (CNN) — In Jackson, Mississippi, a crowd of supporters celebrated Scott Colom’s historic projected win in Mississippi’s Senate race. Ahead of remarks from Colom, members of Tougaloo College concert choir sang a rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner donning robes in the historic school’s red and blue colors. The choir then performed a song introduced by a presenter as “the Black national anthem.” The cultural hymn, called “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” was originally written as a poem by James Weldon Johnson at the turn of the 20th century, according to the NAACP. It’s a song about freedom with religious references that over time has been sung during significant moments throughout history like the 1960s’ Civil Rights Movement, per the NAACP. Colom’s projected victory makes him the first Black person elected to statewide office in Mississippi since the Reconstruction era.

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