And Trump was using his racism and the racism of his followers to do a sleight of hand. While Trump was fueling the racist rage of his followers, he was picking their pockets. Not only did he gain financially from his “One Big Beautiful Bill,” that gave tax breaks to the uber-wealthy, but he was also implementing energy, public lands and foreign policies that benefited the oil and gas industry. Can Trump help it that he had a lot of oil and gas company stock? Trump was using the racism of some of his followers against them to enrich himself and other wealthy people.

It’s like the old saying, “The more things change, the more they remain the same.” In the days when there were attempts to organize White and Black sharecroppers to get a just piece of the American economic pie, Southern influencers would play the race card, and destroy the unity for a better economic position so that poor white folks could somehow feel they had a better place in life than Black folks, a place that was only a delusion.

I bring this up because it didn’t work this time. And how do I know? Well, at this point in time, Scott Colom has a razor-thin lead to become the next U.S. Senator to represent Mississippi. And why is nthat so significant? Well Scott Colom would be the first Black to represent Mississippi in the U.S. Senate since Reconstruction, around 1871. My daughter Jennifer, who lives inn the Jackson, Mississippi area and I exchanged some emails about it. She said, ‘It’s about time.’

I know this for a fact because Hiram Revels who was Alcorn State University’s first president was also Mississippi’s first Black Senator during Reconstruction. I attended Alcorn for two years and the university is still proud of that fact.

By the mere fact that Mississippi is approximately 60 percent white and 40 percent Black makes me feel that there is a percentage of white folks who are realizing they have been had because of the race card and change can still come to Mississippi. Right there is cause for celebration.

And in the midst of the first Muslim and the first openly gay person being elected to the U.S. Senate and the first Black elected to be governor of Florida and Georgia — there are a lot of other firsts — right here in the state of Wisconsin, David Crowley was elected the first Black governor of the state of Wisconsin. How cool is that.

Now David Crowley first appeared in the pages of The Hues back in 2021. He had just been elected Milwaukee County Executive. My brother Jim, who actually graduated with a journalism degree from Marquette University and had since become a retired municipal court judge for the city of Milwaukee, wrote a story about David. It was pretty right-on. Jim saw something in David that the rest of the state would later see.

Four years later, about a year ago, I was also able to interview David. He struck me as an earnest public servant who wanted to make a difference in this state.

A year later, I was able to interview David again after he had earned the Democratic Party nomination for governor.

When I was writing the story, I reread the story that my brother had written in 2021 and the story I had written ion 2025. And David was wonderfully consistent. He didn’t go with the politician’s knack of changing to fit the circumstances and the audience. The David Crowley my brother interviewed in 22021 and the David Crowley I interviewed 2-3 months ago were the same person. David is a solid person with a ton of lived experience as well as professional experience that will guide the state through some perilous times. David has what it takes to guide Wisconsin to a better place.

David Crowley is the governor that Wisconsin needs at this point in its history. The fact that he is Wisconsin’s first Black governor is just icing on the cake.