Sharecropper's grandson Terrance Carroll was chosen Wednesday as speaker of Colorado's House of Representatives, making the state the first in the nation where Blacks lead both chambers of its Legislature.
The milestone is most remarkable in a state where Blacks are just 4 percent of the population and where decades ago the Ku Klux Klan held sway over the Capitol.
Carroll and Senate President Peter Groff, elected to his leadership position a year ago, also are the only Blacks among Colorado's 100 legislators.
"This really does speak volumes about how far this country has moved and how this can really be a place of opportunity," Carroll said before Wednesday's official vote on the 2009 General Assembly's opening day.
His fellow Democrats had picked the 39-year-old Denver lawyer and ordained Baptist minister to lead them back in November, paving the way for Wednesday's unanimous balloting by the whole House, where Democrats outnumber Republicans 38 to 27.
Carroll told his colleagues that in these difficult times, "Americans have sent a clear message to their political leaders: We don't care where you come from, what color your skin is, or what party you belong to. We care only how you can move us forward."
Carroll credits his late mother for his success. She was 51 when he was born and raised him on her own while earning a living as a domestic worker in Washington, D.C.
Groff, also a Denver Democrat and the son of former state legislator Regis Groff, credits the West's openness to people with good ideas, regardless of their background. He pointed to the election of a woman, Janet Napolitano, as governor of Arizona, and President-elect Barack Obama's election victory in Colorado. Obama was only the third Democrat since 1948 to win Colorado's presidential vote.
Groff, 45, is a former assistant to Denver's only Black mayor, Wellington Webb. He was elected Senate president in 2007 after the chamber's first female leader, Joan Fitz-Gerald, stepped down to pursue a failed bid for Congress.
