By Christopher Young,
Contributing Writer,
Oh, what a night! Well over a thousand souls descended on the Columbus High School gymnasium – Home of the Falcons – to rally for Columbus native Scott Colom is his bid to unseat the incumbent junior Senator from Mississippi, Cindy Hyde-Smith, on Thursday, October 22, 2026. The energy, hopefulness, and momentum roared throughout the evening, and when the one and only Vice President Kamala Harris made her way to the stage – while chanting Mississippi Matters – you can just imagine.
Colum was born in Columbus, Mississippi, and the night had the passion of Homecoming, and then some. He is a graduate of Columbus High School, Millsaps College, and the University of Wisconsin School of Law (Cum Laude) in 2009. He served as a staff attorney at the Mississippi Center for Justice. He operated The Colom Law Firm, and in 2011 was appointed as a Justice Court Judge in Lowndes County – the youngest ever, and the first African American. He served as Aberdeen Mississippi Municipal Judge. He served as interim City Prosecutor for Columbus, Mississippi – becoming the city’s first African American prosecutor. He was elected and re-elected twice as District Attorney for Mississippi’s 16th Judicial District, serving from 2016 to the present. Another first for an African American in his white-majority voting district.
In 2022, Colom was nominated by President Biden to serve as U.S. District Court Judge for the Northern District of Mississippi. Despite bipartisan support from Senator Roger Wicker, Congressman Bennie Thompson, and former Governor’s Barbour and Bryant, the nomination was blocked by Senator Cindy Hyde Smith.
Hyde Smith, whom Colom refers to as Cindy High Prices, is a graduate of a segregation academy – Lawrence County Academy, Copiah-Lincoln Community College, and the University of Southern Mississippi.
Those taking the stage prior to Colom and Harris included Columbia, Mississippi singer and songwriter Elsie Alford, Apostle RJ Matthews of Kingdom Vision Church in Columbus, Columbus Mayor Stephen Jones, and Colom’s wife. Nadia Dale Colom shared her husband’s lifelong habit of always finding a way to lift those around him, even sharing that after a terribly long day, and just when she started to share it with her husband at the dinner table, the telephone rang, and Scott apologized and said he just had to answer. It was Vice President Kamala Harris, and after saying hello, he handed the phone to his wife, telling the Vice President he was glad to talk with her but that his wife really needed to hear her voice more than his.
Colom stuck to his theme of Mississippi Matters, including, “when we say Mississippi Matters, we are saying that Mississippi values matter. My church taught me the values that matter. My community taught me the values that matter. This gym taught me the values that matter… right now we need leaders that understand Mississippi’s values and are going to live those values; taking care of our neighbors, doing right…the President is coming to Mississippi on Monday ya’ll, and we welcome him. It’s time to debate and I want to debate him. Cindy High Prices won’t debate me so maybe he will…when she violates our values it costs us.
When I say Mississippi Matters, I also mean Mississippi wages matter. I’ve done over 60 Town Hall’s across Mississippi, unlike our junior Senator who hasn’t done even one in six years…all these costs – she’s giving it away as Mississippian’s suffer…I will never give away your voice. Mississippi healthcare and hospitals matter. Why does Vice President Harris care more about our healthcare and hospitals than Cindy Hyde-Smith? We have a chance to write a new chapter in our state. In the past many people wrote chapters that we are embarrassed of…finding ways to divide and distract us so they could remain in power and not look out for us. Now, together, we can write a chapter that our children and grandchildren can truly be proud of.”
After a rousing introduction by Colom, Madam Vice President took the mic and reminded, “alright now, we have work to do. We have twelve days. I work with a lot of young people, and I mentor them and I tell them – never let somebody else’s ability to see your capacity be a limitation on your ambition. That’s their limitation, not ours. We see Scott Colom as the next United States Senator from Mississippi. We understand that the people of Mississippi deserve better. It doesn’t have to be this way. We know that over half the babies born in Mississippi are born through the assistance of Medicaid – 1 in 4 Mississippians rely on Medicaid for their healthcare, yet the junior Senator voted in favor of a $1 trillion dollar cut to Medicaid. I’m here in this high school in Columbus because this is the place that helped raise Scott, because they understood the capacity of a young man to be a leader among people and lift them up…you know his character…you know him…we have twelve days with you as the best messengers to help people know Scott.
We are in troubling times, we are witnessing brutality, we are witnessing the most callous, corrupt, and incompetent Presidential administration. We spent the last year and half looking at the TV saying words we don’t say in church, sometimes throwing things, going through a range of emotions from anger to sadness to depression…well guess what, we’re twelve days out from an election and it’s time to turn that anger into action.”
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