Blue-and-silver pompoms shimmered beneath strings of lights Wednesday evening at Hal & Mal’s Red Room, where women danced, laughed and gathered around campaign signs. There was music, humor and the unmistakable energy of people who believe something might be shifting.
The occasion was a pre-election pep rally for Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Scott Colom billed as female-centric. Although the candidate was absent, his wife, Nadia Colom, and comedian Rita Brent joined supporters ahead of the Nov. 3 election.
Organized by a group of 11 women, the gathering drew at least 100 women from across the community, including working mothers, educators and political activists. Though the evening centered on women’s voices and experiences, it was never intended to exclude men. Several attended in support, among them state Rep. Earle Banks (D-Jackson), whose red baseball cap bearing a profane anti-Trump message added a bit of humor to the festivities and a reminder that political differences were never far beneath the surface.
The invitation to the event listed as its organizers Carol Puckett Palmer, Ashley Wicks, Beverly Hogan, Carla Kirkland, Debra McGee, Margaret McMullan, Denise Bynum, Donna Barksdale, Jennifer Steele, Toni Cooley and Vangela Wade.
The women who attended were well aware of the distance between political possibility and political reality.
If elected, Colom would become the state’s first Black U.S. senator since Reconstruction, when formerly enslaved Americans briefly gained political power before generations of disenfranchisement and Jim Crow laws reshaped the political landscape.
Colom faces Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith, whose voting record includes support for the 2025 Republican budget reconciliation law, which changed federal taxes and spending, including Medicaid provisions. The two candidates’ competing positions on healthcare, affordability and federal priorities offer voters different approaches to the state’s challenges.
For Nadia Colom, the campaign is also a story about coming home.
After living outside Mississippi, she and her husband felt drawn to return, believing that those who leave can help shape what the state becomes when they bring their experience and investment back.
“If we came back and invested, what a difference we could make,” she recalled. She also shared her husband’s description of his approach to public service.
“I can’t promise you I’ll be the best show horse, but I’ll be the hardest working one,” she quoted him saying.
That distinction had recently surfaced in another unlikely setting: a Trump rally.
On Monday, Colom visited the site of President Donald Trump’s rally for Hyde-Smith in Corinth, walking the line outside, introducing himself and listening to concerns from people whose politics may differ sharply from his own.
Nadia Colom emphasized that representing Mississippi means representing everyone, including those who cast their ballots for someone else.
Rita Brent spoke about the importance of women finding common ground.
“I wanted women to feel united,” Brent said, describing a form of solidarity that reaches across racial and political differences.
She also spoke of women making independent decisions at the ballot box.
“Some Mississippi women are telling me that they are finally voting against their husbands’ wishes,” Brent said.
Nadia Colom closed with an appeal to campaign supporters: “Whatever you’re doing, do it times 10 to get us to the finish line.”
Brent reached further back, invoking the endurance of earlier generations.
“Our ancestors did not have the privilege of not fighting,” she said, adding that she hoped Mississippians would not “get weary in well-doing.”
Outside the room, Mississippi’s political divisions remained. Inside, for an evening, there was music, movement and a familiar Southern practice: finding a little joy while doing the difficult work of imagining what comes next.
As the election approaches, the gathering illustrated how political participation can take many forms: conversations between neighbors, independent decisions at the ballot box, and a room full of women finding reasons to believe their voices matter.
Image: Organizers Beverly Hogan (in white pants) and Carol Palmer (far right) dance with other attendees during the event (credit Talamieka Brice)
