African American Representative To Become New U.S. Senator from South Carolina
December 18, 2012
Representative Tim Scott, a conservative Republican, was chosen yesterday by South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley to replace outgoing Senator Jim DeMint. “It is a historic day in South Carolina,” noted Governor Haley during her announcement at the South Carolina state house in Columbia. “He earned this seat for what I know he is going to do to make South Carolina and our country proud.”
Scott will be the first African American from the South to serve in the U.S. Senate since Reconstruction and its aftermath. When Scott takes office in January, he will be the only African American currently in the Senate and the first to serve in that body since Roland Burris, a Democrat from Illinois. Burris served in 2009 and 2010, filling the seat left vacant by the election of then-Senator Barack Obama to the presidency in 2008.
Scott, who has enjoyed the support of the Tea Party movement, represents a South Carolina Congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives. Before being elected to the House, he served for 13 years on the Charleston County Council and for 2 years in the South Carolina House.
Senator Jim DeMint is leaving the Senate to head the Heritage Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based conservative think tank.
Additional World Book articles:
- Blanche Bruce
- Hiram Rhodes Revels
- Tempest in a Tea Party (a Special Report)