Senatorial Reality Check

AAinSenate
Originally uploaded by Randuwa

Roland Burris is about to be sworn in as only the 6th Black member of the Senate. How is that a bad thing? Rod Blogoavich is an ego-maniacal syncophant with delusions of devine predestination--i.e. a spoiled freaking brat without limitations: Shame on BOTH of his PARENTS.

But why should Roland Burris be a victim when Blogo did his terchiary legal duty in appointing him? Such a legal act may not have been Rod's desire, but after the lights were turned on, he acted with propriety. Assign blame later. The act was and is lawful.

So enter Roland Burris into one of the most exclusive of exclusive clubs--no wonder he is photographed with a shit-wide smile! Who can blame him? In 232 years only 6 African Americans have served in the U.S.Senate and none together to that the percentage of representation has never risen above 1%. While the population of Black Americans has never dropped below 10%.

Here are photos of the 6. Can you name them?

Left to Right, here are their stories in brief:

1) Hiram Rhodes Revels (September 27, 1822 – January 16, 1901) was the first African American to serve in the United States Senate. Since he preceded any African American in the House, he was the first African American in the U.S. Congress as well. He represented Mississippi.

2) Blanche Kelso Bruce (March 1, 1841 – March 17, 1898) was an American politician. Bruce represented Mississippi as a Republican U.S. Senator from 1875 to 1881 and was the first Black American to serve a full term in the U.S. Senate.

3) Edward William Brooke, III (born October 26, 1919), is an American politician and was the first African American to be elected by popular vote to the United States Senate when he was elected as a Republican from Massachusetts in 1966, defeating his Democratic opponent, Endicott Peabody, 58%–42%. He was also the first African American elected to the Senate since the 19th century, and would remain the only person of African heritage sent to the Senate in the 20th century until Democrat Carol Moseley Braun in 1993. He remains, as of 2008, the last Republican senator from Massachusetts.

4) Carol Elizabeth Moseley Braun (born August 16, 1947) is an American politician and lawyer who represented Illinois in the United States Senate from 1993 to 1999. She was the first, and to date, the only, African-American woman elected to the United States Senate, the first African-American senator to be elected as a Democrat, the first woman to defeat an incumbent senator in an election, and the first female senator from Illinois. From 1999 until 2001, she was the United States Ambassador to New Zealand. She briefly participated as a candidate for the Democratic Party nomination in the 2004 U.S. presidential election.

5) Barack Hussein Obama II; born August 4, 1961) is the President-elect of the United States of America, and the first African-American to be elected President of the United States. Obama was the junior United States Senator from Illinois in 2004 and served until his resignation on November 16, 2008, following his election to the Presidency. His term of office as the forty-fourth U.S. president is scheduled to begin on January 20, 2009.

6) Roland Wallace Burris (born August 3, 1937) is a Democratic American politician and former statewide officer in the U.S. state of Illinois. Burris served as Comptroller of Illinois from 1979 to 1991 and as Attorney General of Illinois from 1991 to 1995. On December 30, 2008, Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich (D) announced he was naming Burris to fill the seat in the United States Senate vacated weeks earlier by President-elect Barack Obama.