In farewell, Burris laments lack of blacks in Senate

UPDATE 11:09 AM - Below is a video from ABC7 of Sen. Burris' remarks to the US Senate. You can also read this Sun-Times article on Burri's remarks Via CapFax morning shorts.

Chicago Breaking News:

As his controversial tenure nears its end, Sen. Roland Burris gave a farewell address Thursday lamenting there will be no blacks at all in the next Senate.

"This is simply unacceptable," he said. "We can and we will and we must - do better."

He also noted that only six blacks have served in the Senate in the body's 221-year history.

Senator, we've had three blacks who sought US Senate seats around the nation that I know of in this past election cycle. One was a joke (Alvin Greene from SC), the other in our state (Cheryle Jackson) didn't make it out of the primary, and the last one lost (US Rep. Kendrick Meek - Florida) on Nov. 2nd.

To be sure, I wrote here on this blog and other venues that I really didn't agree with Burris' appointment to the US Senate. Especially since it was Rod Blagojevich who appointed him not long after his arrest on attempting to "auction" the US Senate seat that was held by our current President. As we found out later, if the Senator had actually attempted to run to hold his seat he would've had some problems.

Even my Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. found that out later. He aspired to succeed President Obama and it came out that he planned to raise money for Blagojevich in order to be considered. As a result of that scandal while Congressman Jackson may still continue to be a US Congressman in the foreseeable future, he may not advance beyond the 2nd Congressional District.

Also if I may focus on Illinois for a minute, I remember Ald. Lyle lamented herself the fact that the odds of a Black US Senator went down around the time of Blago's arrest. This year Illinois had the opportunity to send a Black woman to the US Senate and as I've stated she didn't make it out of the primary.

Hopefully in the future, there will be a Black person who can win a primary and be able to conduct a winning campaign for a US Senate seat or any other office such as Governor, Lt. Governor, Treasurer, Comptroller or Attorney General (there were Black candidates for Treasurer and Comptroller this past election as well). In addition to their hard work the backing of those who seek to place a Black in a top office as those.

Let's also hope we can call any other aspiring candidate for higher office a neighbor of this 6th Ward.

BTW, I would like to offer a hat-tip to ChathamNOW for this article although I do hope they refrain from copying and pasting news articles without proper attribution.