Invisible Senators: Unearthing America's Untold Legacy of the First Black Senators

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Today we have a special election day episode where I'm going to share a little bit of American history, so sit back and relax as I pull you into the story of the invisible senators. What if I told you that one of the most important stories in American political history is a story that most people who live in the United States have never even heard. It's not because it happened in secret or because the records were destroyed, but somewhere along the way, America simply stopped telling this story. And while millions of people across the country are mailing in their ballots and going to the ballots this week to vote for candidates in this election season, there's also a group of millions of Americans. Some of the estimates are one third up to one third of citizens that are over 18 and eligible to vote in the United States of America do not participate in the voting or election process, particularly during midterms where a lot of people say, well, the president's not on the ballot, and I only vote every four years for the presidential election, but they don't realize that the midterm election is where all of Congress is selected in 35 people of the US Senate. So this does matter in local races. Governors are selected, mayors are selected, comptroller, city clerk, so a lot of times the local government affects you even more. So with that in mind, today I'm going to share with you one of the most important stories of our 250 years of democracy, and this is the story of America's first two black senators. Sometimes the best way to understand where we're going is to understand what we've already done. So the question is, if I asked you who was America's first black senator, what would you say? I mean, truthfully before I asked myself this question, I had no idea. And if I said who was the second black senator, what would you say? I just would not know. But here's a hint, the first two black senators in American history were both Republicans from Mississippi. At nearly the same time in the same state, Mississippi would be the first state to send a black senator to Washington DC. Mississippi is the state that has been known for some of the harshest racial segregation stories and incidents in our country. It was a battleground during the civil rights movement. It's associated with the murder of Emmett Teal, the assassination of mega-everts, and a struggle to even get blacks to register to vote. So how did Mississippi produce America's first two black U.S. senators? And they did it in the 1870s, their names were Senator Hiram Rhodes Rebels, so Senator Rebels, Hiram Rebels, and Senator Blanche Hellso Bruce, Senator B.K. Bruce. So Rebels and Bruce were America's first two black senators. Hiram Rebels entered the Senate in 187, Blanche Bruce took his seat in the Senate in 1875. But when B.K. Bruce completed his term in 1881, there was not another black senator in the United States until 1967. So 86 years, 86 years, think about that for a moment, between the second black senator leaving office and the third one arriving. In that time, America invented the automobile, the airplane, the television, and the atomic bomb. Two world wars were fought. Women won the right to vote. Jackie Robinson broke Major League Baseball's color barrier. Rosa Parks refused to surrender her seat in Montgomery. MLK delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech. The Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, in the 1960s, all of that happened. And there was not one black person serving in the United States Senate, not even one. But why did it take nine decades between the second and third one? So what actually happened? And that's what I'm going to go in today. It's not just a story about two senators. It's about building of a multicultural democracy. It's about power, privilege. It's about those who were formerly enslaved and how and when it became voters and business owners, how did all this progress evolve? And what was the cause for the 86 years in the middle? More importantly, the story is about us right now in 2026. So this is a very special episode of DME with Doug Melville. And today I want to take you inside the story behind my next book, Invisible Senators. So for the last three years, I have been researching and diving into the story of these two men who were critical into building America as a multiracial democracy. So the United States was the first country in the world to have a multiracial democracy and other countries were looking on. There was a lot of hype at the time. Did this work and these two men were proved that it could work and it's been really a remarkable moment. So let's go back in time. A lot of people always say time doesn't matter, history doesn't matter. That's then you don't have to talk about that, but this is not that long ago. I mean, your grandparents were alive, great grandparents for sure. I mean, my dad just passed, he was 94, he's born in the 30s. So if you take his dad, you know, he's born during this time, you know, it's not that long ago. So this period in American history is known as the reconstruction. And I know when I went to school and came up, the reconstruction was glossed over, you know, it's just like, okay, America ended the Civil War. There was a reconstruction period and then you talk about like the Great Depression or the roaring 20s. The story just kind of skips ahead. Then you get into World War II, then you get into the Civil Rights era, then you get into the free 70s and then you get into 80s and technology and then the 90s with culture and then so forth. But you don't really talk much about the reconstruction. But this period is a long time ago. period is one of the most meaningful periods in history. And during that period when they got to figure out who gets to decide to vote, three constitutional amendments were written and granted. So the known as the reconstruction amendments, and the 13th Amendment, 14th Amendment, and 15th Amendment. The 13th Amendment was 1865, that's when it was ratified, and that abolished slavery, except as punishment for a crime following conviction. So that was essentially the freedom amendment. And you can watch 13th by April DuVernay and read all the history books on understanding the complicated nuance of the 13th Amendment, but the 13th Amendment was the Freedom Amendment. Next up is the 14th Amendment, which was ratified in 1868, and it established a birthright citizenship, and guaranteed equal protection of the laws would be part of everyone's future, birthright citizenship. And this is also being debated today. And 3rd was the 15th Amendment. This was ratified in 1870, and this prohibited denying voting rights due to race, color, or previous condition of servitude. So this is essentially the voting rights amendment. So think about it. Civil War ends, countries in chaos, and boom, 3 amendments signed right away within the next 5 years. So now the Constitution is being rewritten so that everyone in the country is a citizen, and everyone is able to participate in the political structure, even those people who have been enslaved. So suddenly, boom, the population dictates the votes. And who had a huge population? Well, blacks in the South were counted as three-fifths of our people in the three-fifths rule. So to keep population numbers under control, but to get partial representation, black Americans were counted as three-fifth of a human in the census. But now they are going to be full human beings. Ladies and gentlemen, these people have been around on earth for 200,000 years. And now here we are, and we are now allowing black Americans to become citizens in vote. They have been here for 200 years, and we are now just giving them a chance. So God bless. It's just like Martin Luther King said, "What are laws without morals?" So this is a big deal. All of a sudden, all the blacks in the South are eligible to register to vote. The way that the story always is, that the North was so good, but in the North, they did not like any of this that was going on. They were not down with this. Less than 5% of people were abolitionists that was a real niche thing. They thought the South should not allow and sign on all these amendments to change the whole country. They were just thinking this is not going to work. So the North wasn't necessarily hyping it up. But the South, on the other hand, now had millions of black voters. And all those voters went to go register. And some states, such as Mississippi, had the most black Americans living in the state. South Carolina had a lot. Louisiana had a lot. Mississippi had a lot. So black Americans started winning elections. And it didn't just win one election or two elections. There were over 2000 black men. Because women were still not allowed to vote. So it was still only men voting. But there were 2000 black men that held public, state, national, local, county positions during reconstruction. So 1865 to 1870. Now blacks can freely vote. 1870 to 1877. 2000 black officials were seated. So congressmen are getting voted in. Jim Claiborne recently wrote an amazing book about the congressman in South Carolina. Because there was a huge contingent of black congressmen during this period from the state of South Carolina that were represented in Congress. So now black Americans are serving in the legislator, writing your state's constitution, voting on your state's reps. And this was the beginning of an incredible political transformation. And I bring this up because we have to vote. All this was built from the bottom up. The amendments were passed. But the change and the personification of the amendments was done through voting. And that's the most important part of the show. At the time, President Andrew Johnson resisted many of these efforts to continue to allow blacks to vote. But one of the things that's mostly overlooked is that when the Civil War happened, each state operated almost like a mini country. It was almost when you go to Europe and all the countries are intertwined and interconnected, kind of like the EU. This was the United States. They were the United States of America, but they were originally the 13 colonies. And each colony had their own laws. That was kind of the whole state's rights thing. So when the Union had a Civil War, this was a line in the sand that the states cannot run a mock. Everybody has to be aligned and unified as the United States of America. So each state's local government and senators were the most powerful people that they could send to represent the state in the US Senate and Washington DC. But there was two different visions of America. The 3 million blacks and many people around them felt this is a good change because we're ultimately going to be a democracy. But there was a majority of people that said this is ridiculous. This is we have allowed all of these millions of black Americans in, but we cannot give them equal standing just off the bat because they were just property. So that was when the story of Hiram Rebels comes in. February 25th, 1870, Hiram Rebels takes oath of office to become a United States senator, Hiram Roads Rebels. Less than 10 years before that Mississippi was a Confederate state and now they are the state sending a black Republican to represent the United States in the Senate. So think about this, not New York, not Massachusetts, not a Northern state that believes in abolitionist traditions, Mississippi. This black Friday, the home depot has savings with up to 40% of select smart home devices to keep your home cozy and secure. Bring home the fourth gen nest learning thermostat that lets you control your home's temperatures straight from your phone or get a better view of guests with the ring-wire doorbell pro 4K, even in the glow of holiday lights. First start is like, wow, how are we going to do all this? That includes Phil Services manager, Drexel Jones. His team made sure it all came together and held up on game day. 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Coca-Cola zero sugar has the real Coca-Cola taste you love with zero sugar. It's one of those drinks that's harder exists, whether you're catching up with friends, grabbing lunch or sitting down to dinner. And since it's zero sugar, you can always order another when you're ready. That's exactly why it's just too good to wait. Try it for yourself. Coca-Cola zero sugar, real Coca-Cola taste zero sugar is too good to wait. This episode is brought to you by the Hulu original series All's Fair. The all new season is now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus. From executive producer Ryan Murphy, the phenomenon people can't stop talking about is back. Starring Kim Kardashian, Naomi Watts, Nisi Nashbetz, Tiana Taylor, with Sarah Poulson and Glenn Close. Your favorite divorce lawyers return with wilder cases. Bigger scandals and more fun. Fabulous fashion. Car targets a firm takeover and declares war like only car can. Allura's past comes back to stalker and puts everyone's lives at risk. And Deena reveals a bombshell of a secret that has the women questioning everything. Season two serves delicious drama and outrageousness. All Sphere is unhinged AF. Watch the all new season of the Hulu original series, All Sphere. Now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+ for Bundle Subscribers, Terms of Lie. But who was Hero of Rebels? And how did he get this position? So to go a little bit through his background, he was born in 1827 in Fayetteville, North Carolina. But unlike many black children in North Carolina, he was born free. So it's another part of the story that we don't really know that there was a contingent of free blacks in North Carolina. And that didn't mean that he lived equally because there were restrictions around where people could live or where they could travel. But Rebels did have a lot of opportunities particularly around education. Once he got his education and started to learn, that was the superpower of the time who had the education. Once he had the education began to learn, he started to see that he can move up fast through the knowledge of teaching others, the information that he had. Now, in order to do that, he leaned in to the gospel, to religion. And he ultimately became a minister at the African Methodist Episcopal Church. And he had his pulpit and he would inspire people and he would travel around the United States. We have to look at this because he developed his leadership, speaking, articulation, presence, style, all from the church. The black church was the institution, the place where people could speak publicly and organize communities and develop new networks and raise money, debate ideas. The church was the form of leadership and community denied to blacks in overall American society. And here in Rebels thrived in the church. He preached, he traveled, he educated. And then when the Civil War began, he then signed up as a black minister to recruit soldiers to fight for the union. So he became part of the United States military as a minister and as a veteran. And his job as a minister was to recruit men all over the places he traveled to enter and fight for the union in the Civil War. Now, sometimes it's consistent with men in the South. He told him to run up, go north and join the union. But there really wasn't black soldiers fighting for the Confederacy, that's kind of a ludicrous idea. Sometimes there's reports of that, but it's not true. So here in Rebels ends up in Mississippi, not Chez Mississippi. And he ends up living there, preaching there. And the Civil War ends and he now becomes really involved in community leadership. He's in not Chez Mississippi, he's a local hero in a way, he's the center of the church in the community. People were really religious in that area at the time and he had the education in the presence. So they elected him to local office and then he got elected to the Mississippi State Senate. And in January 1870, Mississippi selected him to be the United States Senator. So at the time, states did not allow citizens to vote for senators, the state legislator voted amongst themselves. So elected officials voted for who would be the senator. And this is the way it was until 1913 when the 17th Amendment passed. And now the people vote for the senators. That's why we have what we have today. So once Mississippi sends him to Washington DC, they didn't really want him there. They did not want him there. Even that he was credentialed and he was revered locally. And the argument centered around the 14th Amendment. And this is a very interesting nuance. And in my book, I talk about this moment. And that is the moment where there was a group of Americans, a very powerful group that said that black Americans only became citizens the day the 14th Amendment was passed. So essentially, everybody who's black would have the same citizen birthday. Because before that, they were property. There was maybe no records of them, no history of them. They were traded like cattle. So they were not people. So there was an argument that was like, hey, the day the 14th Amendment's ratified, everybody black becomes a person in that day. So if you have to be an adult to be a senator, 1821 years old, their argument was there's gonna be an 18 to 21 year window because you just became a person today. This is what makes the story so wild. So when Rebels goes to Washington DC, it's months after the 14th and 15th Amendment. I mean, it's 18th, it's the same year the 15th Amendment was passed. So a lot of people were fighting him really in the halls of the Senate. And even though he lived in America and served in America and supported the Union during war, there was a debate whether he can be a senator and if he had been an American citizen long enough, does his childhood count as citizenship? This is crazy. And the Senate ultimately rejected the challenge. And in February 25th, 1870, Hiram Rebels took his seat as America's first black US Senator. So he's sitting in the chamber with the same lawmakers that defended slavery, voting in debates, voting on legislation, representing a state that fought against the Union. So he did not get elected though for the full term. He was taken the seat of Senator Albert Brown. He left his Senate seat when the state seceded. And before Brown, that seat was held by Jefferson Davis, who was the president of the Confederacy. So that is the seat here in Rhodes Rebels occupied. So what was Rebels to do once he got into the seat? He voted and opposed racial segregation. He advocated for education and really laid the seed for the public school education system and really the HBCU system, so him and Bruce would both really fight for education. And of course, the rights for black citizens. So Rebels also supported Native Americans. And he supported reconciliation. He was more of a connector. And some black political leaders, particularly at that time, thought the former Confederate whites should face strict consequences for starting a coup within the country and fighting the Union. And Rebels felt there should be more conciliatory approaches towards those individuals. So he was all about reconciliation and support towards the South and that we need to work together moving forward because they're wounded. But that position was hardly, was very criticized. And it also kind of reflected a larger challenge of reconstruction. It's how do you rebuild the nation when the people you're trying to reconcile resist your fundamental rights that everyone's equal? So I mean, they are caught in a quagmire. How can you forgive someone who's so ideologically different? And those questions came up a lot during his term and a lot of his time in the Senate, outside of education and really voting for black rights was really getting the stage set for B.K. Bruce. So he only served one year. And when he left his office in the Senate, he went on to move back to Mississippi and he created Alcorn State University. So one of the things about this story is Mississippi sent the first two black senators to the United States Senate in the 1870s. And at the same time, Mississippi had a contingent of citizens who were building out a plan called project Mississippi, which essentially was a plan to obstruct and bring back the Confederacy through white supremacy. So Mississippi had both sides of the spectrum happening at the same exact time. They were building the most liberal blueprint for the other states, the other 10 states of the South, beside them, a blueprint for them to build a multi-racial democracy and how you can allow the citizens to vote and they elect people locally and they elect people throughout the state and then the state Senate votes for the Senate. And then this is how other states should implement equality and equity after the Civil War. Mississippi is the state that laid out the blueprint. But at the same time, they were laying out the blueprint for how to stop this. So both, things are true at the same time, but at the time they were winning. The senators got seated, which is funny enough because the third senator was actually supposed to be from Louisiana, but they refused to seat him. So they're actually, that was during Bruce's time. So four years after Rebels, four years after Rebels leaves office, we have B.K. Bruce. Rebels was born free, Bruce was born and enslaved. So if Hiram Rebels represented that a black considered in the US Senate, B.K. Bruce represented something even more profound. And I love B.K. Bruce. B.K. Bruce is coming in strong. Now I personally am mixed race and B.K. Bruce is mixed race too. And he grew up with the black and the white two sides of the family. So you can get a real balance of cultures, conflict and comfort when you grow up in a mixed race family. Other families too, but I just related to his story around mixed race families just do history and all the things that come along with it, skin color, class, neighborhood, looks, careers, you know, all the things that all families deal with. But I think it just was much more relatable because the nuance of his family dynamic. But B.K. Bruce was born and enslaved. And after he would leave the Senate, he would become the head of the registry of the United States Treasury and his signature would appear on paper currency. So from 1880 to 1888, B.K. Bruce's signature was the first signature to appear on US currency of the black American. And he would write in his diaries the money that purchased him as a child would bear his name as an adult. This was powerful. The money that purchased him as a child would bear his name as an adult. B.K. Bruce, this guy was a legend. No one's even ever heard of him. No one talks about him. No one's heard of him. I'm here on eBay by an old bills from the 1800s signed by B.K. Bruce because I'm looking at him here. I have a whole collection. I cannot believe a black man's signature appeared on US currency in the 1880s. I just can't believe there was this whole period going on. 90% voting 2000 elected officials, two senators, a handful of congresspeople. What? Now, reconstruction was renamed radical reconstruction throughout history. And that was because the history books were written by a historian that had southern ties. So a lot of black history stories just stop getting told. That's clearly all it is. They didn't get fully erased. You can find history about them, but they're not elevated. They're not promoted. They're not featured. They're not displayed. They're not celebrated, but they're there. So B.K. Bruce was born enslaved in Virginia in night in 1841. So similar to Rebels, B.K. Bruce moved a lot from state to state. Now, he was learning to read because his father was the plantation owner and his mother was the woman who was enslaved. So he was both the son and the property at the same time of his father. He was his father's son and his father's property at the same time. And because of this, the father wanted him to be property, but also knew and wanted him to be his son. So he allowed him to learn to read and go to school with his brother from the man's wife. So he grew up being educated, being taught. He was still enslaved. He could still be bought and sold and he could still not have any control over his future. But also, he could read and he could write and he was educated with his younger brother, his whole life, when not his whole life, but much of his life. And during the Civil War, he escaped to freedom and Kansas. And he became a teacher. And he looked at business and he became involved in politics. And he also eventually made his way to Mississippi. And he understood something at the time that may have been radical or may have been elitist, but that his political power and economic power are connected. He didn't just want to title. He wanted to be an independent land owning, property having, business man and public official. So he entered politics at a moment when Mississippi had already seated a black senator. The voting rate was high. The election rate was high. And everything was being fundamentally transformed. So he said, boom, I'm going to serve in local government. You then got voted and appointed into county positions. And he'd learn how the public administration worked and you built a political network that positioned him to pursue one of the highest offices in the country. And in 1874, the Mississippi legislator once again elected BK Bruce as a United States senator. March 4th, 1875, he takes office and Bruce would serve a full six year period, 34 years old. From the time he was born enslaved as property, to the time he got a seat in the United States Senate is the American dream. He had intelligence ambition and discipline and they mattered, but he was the physical reality of the American dream. The reconstruction period where everything was untethered. The gerrymandering wasn't heavy. There was a lot of oversight from the north. The states didn't have the resources to continue to segregate. There was a lot of violence, but there also was a lot of freedoms. It was just a really limited, structured time. It was called reconstruction. The purpose of the time was to reconstruct society. So in 10, 15 years, it could work in a new way after the Civil War. But at the time, people started seeing black power. And if you think about it, blacks had never been free. They were willing to work for half of the whites. They knew how to do all the jobs, all the cooking, all the cleaning, new how to invent, new how to build. But they had built and created the entire South under the whip, under the gun, and under the presence of their landowner. So when everybody's free, who do you think can get the jobs? So they take all of the jobs and they get the money from the jobs lower. There's no minimum wage, lower than the standard rates. And they pooled the money together to buy land. Now they also pooled their money together to enter it into something called Friedman's Bank, which was a bank run by the United States government that ultimately stole and embezzled all the money that the enslaved men and women were making, they were able to use this bank. They put Fredrick Douglas's head of the bank and part of B.K. Bruce's term in the Senate was to oversee the proceedings for this bank. So let's not sugarcoat it. The United States government still came for the money when the money was coming in because this was the bank that was backed by the government to take the deposits. But then the money ultimately never went back to the depositors. So that's a whole big dark portion. I talk about it in the book. It's really big and really deep. But B.K. Bruce saw how to get in and now he's in the Senate and he really doubles down on civil rights, HBCUs and public education. He's involved in federal spending. He's involved in the agriculture laws, commerce laws, things regarding the Mississippi River. He's concerned about the treatments of black Americans, Native Americans. He was not just a black senator. He was a United States senator and he was checking for everybody who was black. But he was for everybody. And I brought up his name a little earlier. PBS pinch box from Louisiana. He was the governor of Louisiana and 1873 Louisiana legislature elected him to the United States Senate, which means he would have been the third black senator. But he was never seated. His plane became entangled in disputes at the Louisiana governing level. And political governments started to debate to debate the legitimacy of his election win. This went back and forth for three years. But the third black senator from Louisiana never actually got to the Senate. PBS pinch bar. You know, there's a great report in Harvard. It's called around the law of threes. And it says that if you have three people in an alternative environment. So if there's three diverse people or different people in an environment, change can actually occur. So essentially, if there's one person in a sea of objectors, there's not enough control to move anything. If there's two, there's still not enough. But when you get three, that's when you could start to politically move in the system and get more supporters and more backers and add new headcount. So the point is there is an opportunity when you get three and pinch-bock from Louisiana was never able to get in as the third even after three years. So B. K. Bruce definitely stood up for him too. So history sometimes only tells the story of those who made it, but we should know him because he did not make it. But also, beside his time in the Senate, he also received a vote for Vice President of the United States of America at the Republican National Convention at the RNC, the president and the Vice President at the time are on the same ticket in advance. And when they went to the convention, he was on one of the tickets as the Vice President and B. K. Bruce got a vote for Vice President of the United States of America. 1870s, just saying. So he became the presiding member of the Senate in some of the sessions when he was there. So he was the first black to preside over deliberations in the United States Senate. The most powerful people in the country are listening to a man that was once enslaved. This man was unbelievable. He became very wealthy, big landowner. There's books written about him. I just wrote a book about him. I'm telling you, my book is very exciting. I am making history fun. People need to know the stories and visible senators, B. K. Bruce, here on Rebels. Come on, y'all, we got to drop this knowledge at the dinner party. So he had to work within a system and try to change it. So when reconstruction governments were under attack and black voters were facing growing intimidation and former Confederates were starting to reclaim their political power. The experiment of multiracial democracy was hitting its turning point. The multiracial democracy, been around since 1870, we're a decade in. It's just wearing thin. People are just over it. They think there's too many resources in the diversity. They think we're spending too much money and integration. They think there's too much time. There's too much effort. And you could make the parallel to today where a group of Americans think there's way too much time and resource put into one particular group and they got to change the vibes. Now it is also happening with ageism. I know this is a story about race and about the south and the north and sometimes with the debate between men and women. But the thing about it is, there's six times more money going into older Americans and younger Americans. You know, there are a finite number of resources in some groups are getting political favor because of their presence in position at the time and a lot of the voters are young and a lot of the lawmakers are older and older Americans are choosing to look out more for older Americans, historical careers, legacy brands, and the younger Americans are starting to say, hey, you know, even Google's 30 years old. These young companies are still 30 years old. So now they're becoming more traditional companies and the voters are saying, I don't understand. So the narrative was changing at the time. And when Bruce ended his term in 1881, we would have to wait 86 years for the next black senator. And that's the tragedy at the center of the story. And that is multicultural democracy is not only about representation. It is about power. It is about who gets to vote. Who gets political participation? Who gets the money? Who do the laws favor? Who is excluded? And after Bruce left office, the Supreme Court stepped in the southern states were given their states rights issues back. So a lot of the Confederates from the north that had moved up after the Civil War went back to their properties. It was the grand compromise of 1877. When during the presidential election, just what happened to us with Kamala Harris and President Trump, or I'm sorry, Hillary Clinton and President Trump, where one candidate won the electoral college and one candidate won the popular vote. And which ultimately becomes president. And that happened in the United States in 1876. Which president? Which candidate was going to become president and which candidate was going to have to concede. And during that time, they made the grand compromise. And that was that states and the South could get state right issues back. The north were turned their head to it and focus on other issues. They pull out all the troops that were down there to oversee the union. And once that happened, the Mississippi plan that was being written at the same time in the state, that then became the blueprint for the Southern states. And then that's when they implemented all these various penance laws. That's when the clan started back up. That was when lynchings happened, Jim Crow happened. And now America has gone almost in a trade from slavery to white supremacy. So that was kind of what was talked about in the grand compromise of 1877. There wasn't really, there's a lot of conversation around it. But firsthand accounts are limited. But there is a actually one really good firsthand account from someone that was in the room. But at the time, that was the compromise that the states could create more laws and be a little bit more liberal or conservative or whatever they felt fit. And with those changes, black voting went down, black land ownership went down, black financial progress went down, representation went down. And with that, blacks could not get another candidate to win a United States Senate seat until 86 years later. It was a slow chipping deterioration. Now what makes this so interesting is that 86 years later, when Senator Brooke runs for the United States Senate in the state of Massachusetts, he runs on the Democratic ticket. And he doesn't get the Democratic seat on the ballot. He loses the Democratic primary. So then he goes over to the Republican primary, which happened after the Democratic primary. He gets put on that ballot. And then he wins the Republican seat and wins the overall United States Senate seat from Massachusetts. He ran as a Democrat and a Republican in the same election. And one, as a Republican. So the third black Senator in the United States was also a black Republican, which is like, I mean, sometimes you look at politics thing, I mean, come on. There's no way that the first three United States senators were black Republicans. But that's true. And that's what we learn when we learn American history. Sometimes we think things and the reality is a little bit different. But the thing is I wouldn't think about it anyway. But when I started going down the wormhole and like, wow, we can learn a lot from history. It's one of those drinks that's harder exists, whether you're catching up with friends, grabbing lunch, or sitting down to dinner. Try it for yourself. The all new season is now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+. Starring Kim Kardashian, Naomi Watts, Nisi Nashbets, Tiana Taylor, with Sarah Palson and Glenn Close. Your favorite divorce lawyers returns with wilder cases. Bigger scanned and more fabulous fashion. 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Learn more at zero.com. So the moral of this story and why I wanted to tell it during election week is. Number one, now you can be up to date on history. That our school books obviously did not tell us. And that we should know and tell our kids and our community and our families. They say, "Hey, it already happened 86 years ago. We could do it again. Why didn't it happen? People didn't vote." But sometimes, the biggest barrier is actually law. Sometimes, the biggest barrier is actually society. So you can't always put it on the people. The laws were there. Society was there. Everybody's trying to survive and feed their family and grow personally and professionally. And sometimes the laws are just too restrictive in one direction. But the part that we all need to walk away with and understand is progress does not always move linearly. We want to imagine history as a straight line. We want it to be more aligned. But every generation brings a little bit more to freedom. One little barrier falls. Then it may go back up. It may stay down. Sometimes progress pushes back. But sometimes that backlash is powerful enough to reverse the progress. And that is exactly what happened during Reconstruction. All the power that was taken by Black Americans that they had earned. They were promised that was written into the amendments. Was ultimately chipped away using threats and intimidation, political organization, targets from the government, targeting teachers and community, murder, violence, disenfranchisement. All the local sheriffs, the mayors, the landlords, everybody pushed back. And then the question was, could people safely exercise their rights? And it just didn't happen. In 1875, the Democrats implemented what became known as the Mississippi plan in Mississippi. And that represented a coordinated campaign to regain political control through intimidation, violence, and electoral pressure. And the first target was the Black Republican. Political meetings were disrupted, terrorism in the community. The goal was break it up, no matter what, and the strategy worked. So the showdown happened. Brother Furby Hayes and Samuel Tilden Hayes agreed to withdraw if federal troops were removed from the South. And it would be 86 years. But the opportunity to build a multiracial democracy lies in our hands. We must realize an important lesson about power. There are mechanisms that are in place. There are people trying to deny people to vote because they don't want their elected officials to change the rules. They sometimes appear neutral on paper, but sometimes the rules are actually created, designed, or applied to produce unequal outcomes. And we must realize that if we do not stay active, political participation today will eradicate like the 86 years between the second and third Black Senator. 86 years. It's important that we move forward by returning to American democracy by participating in the system that allows us to make the change. If these two men could make it in the 1870s, people can make it today. So I hope everybody voted. I hope you learned a little something today. And I will see you on the next episode of D.M.E. with Doug Moe. D.M.E. with Doug Melville is a production of the Black Effect Podcast Network. When the holidays start to feel a bit repetitive, reach for Sprite Winter Spice Cranberry and put your twist on tradition. A bold cranberry and winter spice flavors fusion. Sprite Winter Spice Cranberry is a refreshing way to shape things up this sip and season and only for a limited time. Sprite, obey your thirst. It's about that time. The holiday decorating season is here and the Home Depot has trees to match any holiday vibe. This Black Friday take home the 6.5 foot festive pine artificial tree for only $49. 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