Colorado Now Has Two Black Legislative Leaders

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. Carroll and Senate President Peter Groff, who was elected to his leadership position a year ago. The milestone is even more remarkable when you consider they are the only Blacks among the state's 100 legislators and the state has a Black population of only 4 percent.

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. Carroll said his mother, the granddaughter of a slave, only reached the third grade but urged him to take advantage of free public education. He graduated from Morehouse College and the Iliff School of Theology, and then attended the University Of Denver School Of Law while serving in the legislature. "I think it's a testament of what you can do and what a child can do when they're loved, cared for and encouraged," he said of his mother.

Groff is 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 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.

He 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 stepped down to pursue a bid for Congress.

Groff and Carroll are longtime friends who live 10 blocks from each other and initially didn't realize they would be making national history, but the National Conference of State Legislatures has confirmed that they are. The two have teamed on legislation supporting charter schools, concerned that urban schools are failing minority students. That's sometimes put them at odds with other Democrats.

Colorado doesn't have the same racial legacy as some states in the South or East. But the Ku Klux Klan did dominate state politics in the mid-1920s, and Klan members once sat in the Capitol chamber where Carroll will wield the gavel. One floor below, Klan member Clarence Morley occupied the governor's office.