Bennie Thompson came of age at a time when segregation was still enforced across Mississippi and Black political participation was routinely suppressed.

Unfortunately, that history isn’t particularly unique.

Many older Black Mississippians still tell stories about returning home from military service only to be directed to a separate service window because of the color of their skin.

Others remember attending segregated schools, being harassed by white children, and knowing that defending themselves could put their entire family in danger.

These are not stories from some distant chapter of American history.

They happened within living memory.

And Bennie Thompson’s story is part of that history.

Thompson’s father, an auto mechanic, died without ever casting a ballot.

As a student at Tougaloo College, Thompson joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and became involved in the effort to register Black Mississippians to vote.

He also worked as a student organizer for civil-rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer’s historic 1964 congressional campaign.

Those experiences inspired him to get involved in politics himself.

In 1969, just one year after graduating from college, he ran for alderman in Bolton and won.

But, at that time, winning the election wasn’t always enough for a Black Mississippian.

It took a federal appeals court ruling before Thompson and two other Black candidates who had been elected could take their places in Bolton’s city government.

Thompson eventually became mayor of Bolton and a member of the Hinds County Board of Supervisors.

Then in 1993, he was elected to Congress from Mississippi’s Second Congressional District, the same district where he had once helped organize for Fannie Lou Hamer.

But Thompson’s career arc is remarkable for more than just its connection to Fannie Lou Hamer.

His political career began with trying to get Black Mississippians registered to vote.

More than half a century later, voting rights and Black political representation remain central questions in Mississippi politics.

And once again, Thompson finds himself directly in the middle of that fight.

Mississippi’s Second Congressional District is the state’s only majority-Black congressional district, and Thompson has represented it since 1993.

Now its future has become part of Mississippi’s renewed redistricting battle.

Opponents of the proposed redistricting have warned that new boundaries could reduce Black voting strength and threaten the future of Thompson’s district.

So it is a difficult, but perhaps fitting, moment in history for a boy from Bolton, Mississippi, to find himself in the evening of his career.

But despite the recent challenge and hardship, Thompson’s work has not been in vain.

Thompson grew up in a state where slavery, the Ku Klux Klan, and lynching had once been used to deny Black Mississippians their freedom and political power.

Because of the work of Thompson’s generation, Black Mississippians today face far fewer barriers to voting, and many more hold public office than when Thompson first entered politics.

But Thompson’s life is also a reminder of how recently many of those doors opened.

His generation fought to open those doors.

And today, another generation has inherited what people before them fought to build.

That history does not belong only to Bennie Thompson.

It belongs to all of Mississippi.

And as voters prepare to decide on November 3 who will represent them in Congress, Thompson’s story offers a reminder of just how much political representation once cost people in this state, and why the right to be heard has never been something to take for granted.