Voters in South Carolina
elected the first African-American to the US Senate from the South since
the years immediately following the Civil War, according to projections
from television networks.
Tim Scott, 49, was expected to easily
win the historic vote after having been appointed un-elected to the post
in 2012 when the previous senator stepped down.
The son of a
nursing assistant who grew up in poverty and later achieved success in
business and local politics, Scott has long espoused conservative
positions and his victory will boost the Republican party's bid to
broaden its appeal beyond white voters. He is the first black
senator elected from the South since Reconstruction, the period after
the country's Civil War, which ended in 1877 with the withdrawal of
federal army troops.
And
he will represent a state where the first shots of the Civil War were
fired in 1861, with rebels firing on a federal ship in the port of
Charleston.
Scott's election marks a stunning contrast to the
senator who represented South Carolina for decades, Strom Thurmond, a
hardline opponent of racial equality who fought for segregation for
years.
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