The Coalition Jim Crow and the Lost Cause Was Built to Stop
Kevin M. Levin's newsletter argues that Mississippi's 2026 election, in which Black Democrat Scott Colom may become the state's first Black U.S. senator since Reconstruction's Blanche Bruce and Hiram Revels, shows the interracial coalition that Jim Crow disfranchisement was built to prevent now forming. Quoting 1890 convention leaders Solomon Saladin Calhoon and James Vardaman on excluding Black voters, Levin contends the Lost Cause has held longest in Mississippi — where Forrest County still bears Nathan Bedford Forrest's name — but is finally losing its grip.
