Scott Colom’s Father Reflects On His Son’s Historic Win and a New Future for Mississippi

There are election-night reactions, and then there are the tears of a man who has spent decades watching Mississippi change–often painfully, slowly and against seemingly impossible odds. Wilbur Colom is not simply Senator-elect Scott Colom’s father. He is a Mississippi attorney who participated in the civil rights struggles of the 1970s and early 1980s, served on Ronald Reagan’s presidential transition team and once navigated the state’s political landscape as a Republican. So when he says he never thought he would witness his son’s historic victory, those words carry the weight of generations.

Scott’s historic defeat of Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith makes him Mississippi’s first Black U.S. senator since Reconstruction, shattering a political barrier in a state whose history is inseparable from slavery, segregation and the fight for Black voting rights.

And nobody seems to understand the magnitude of that moment quite like his father. Speaking about the victory to CNN’s Laura Coates, Colom recalled calling an old attorney friend with whom he had worked on civil rights cases decades earlier. When the conversation turned to the friend’s efforts to help Scott’s campaign, the attorney unexpectedly broke down.

“I’ve never seen this lawyer cry before,” Colom recalled. “And, you know, I started crying with him, because he said, ‘I never thought I would see this in my lifetime.’”

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That exchange captures what the election means beyond Washington’s partisan calculations. For Black Mississippians, it represents the possibility that generations of organizing, sacrifice and political participation can produce something once considered unimaginable.

For the Colom family, however, the victory is also deeply personal.

Scott’s mother, Dorothy Colom, a pioneering judge who became the first Black person elected to her region’s Chancery Court, raised their son with a particular understanding of perseverance. After Dorothy lost an election, Colom recalled her asking what they would do next.

His answer: “We’re gonna get up and go to work.” She eventually won her third election. That same determination became a family philosophy. Scott tells his two daughters, “Colom girls never give up.”

Colom believes that work ethic helped propel his son across the finish line, even with a campaign operating on significantly fewer resources than its competitors.

“Scott and I sat and talked about what we were going to do in Mississippi in the coming years,” Colom continued in the interview. “So, you know what he’ll do tomorrow? He’ll get up, and he’ll get to work. And what he’ll do Friday: he’ll get up, and he’ll get to work.”

Scott’s father’s Republican history makes this moment especially interesting. According to Scott’s Senate campaign website, Colom supported former President Reagan, served on his transition team, participated in Thad Cochran’s Senate campaign and ran unsuccessfully for state treasurer as a Republican in 1987. His son’s victory represents a different political chapter for the family and Mississippi.

Still, Colom insists victory should not mean hostility toward Hyde-Smith.

“She’s not our enemy,” he said, emphasizing that Scott intends to represent all Mississippians. “Scott’s going to be her senator, and her neighbor’s senator, and he’s not going to offer any criticism of her… We appreciate what she’s done for Mississippi. We just disagreed with her.”

The next chapter begins with the same instruction Colom remembers giving his family: Get up. Go to work. Mississippi’s history has changed. Now comes the work of making that change matter.