Interesting point, if it pans out, from a reader:
I’ve been thinking about your comment that the MSM refer to Ford as the
“first black [or African American] senator from the South since the
1870s.” What I’m wondering is this: Is Deval Patrick the first black
governor of the North? There have been two black governors, both of them
from the South, P. B. S. Pinchback of Louisiana (1872-73) and Douglas
Wilder of Virginia (1990-94). There may have been more, but a prelim.
internet search — i.e., the Wikepaedia entry — reveals only these.
If this is the extent of it, would it be too much to ask that the MSM
refer to Patrick as the “first black governor in the North, ever”? I
know Northerners don’t think of themselves as Northerners the way
Southerners think of themselves as Southerners, but it doesn’t seem
quite fair for the South to be singled out as the only
electoral/geographical entity worth mentioning.