Great Scott! Racist GOP Picks An African-American Senator

Investors Business Daily copied onto a blog ^ | December 18, 2012

[John Galt's cousin]

Thanks. I googled him and found this on wikopedia. It seems to be in need of an update:

Roland Wallace Burris (born August 3, 1937)[1] is a former United States Senator from the state of Illinois and a member of the Democratic Party.

In 1978, Burris was the first African-American elected to statewide office in Illinois, when he was elected Illinois Comptroller. He served in that office until his election as Illinois Attorney General in 1990. Since then, he has unsuccessfully run for office four more times.[2]

Burris was appointed by Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich to replace President-Elect Barack Obama as the junior senator from Illinois. The appointment was controversial, as the governor was already under investigation and there were rumors of his being paid for the appointment. Prior to Burris’s appointment, Obama was the U.S. Senate’s only African American; he resigned his Senate seat after being elected President of the United States.[3] Burris was the subject of an ethics probe.[4]

[WashingtonSource]

Thanks for the clarification.

[ladyjane]

Yes, there are a lot of former slave states. Slaves weren’t illegal when our country was founded. Even in Massachusetts - gasp - there were slaves!

[MWestMom]

Not only were there slaves in the colonies; but many immigrants came here as indentured servants. African Americans did not have a monopoly on lives of servitude. The first Africans that came in the 1600’s to the colonies were indentured servants as were other races who wanted to come for the opportunity.

Most indentured servants served time (4-7 years was a common contract)but that time could be and very often was extended for infractions of rules. Granted, if the indentured individual did manage to win their freedom, some were given land or goods.

Massachusetts passed the first “slave law” in 1641 and 20 years later Virginia followed suit when landowners decided the need for cheap labor and the threat to their own land from indentured servants warranted the action. The South has taken so much heat for slavery when most people don't realize that it was started much further north and from the onset of the nation.