<sod >Charleston-born Scott, 49, is also the first black politician to win a state-wide election in South Carolina since Reconstruction, the period immediately following the War, and only the fifth African-American ever elected to the US Senate.< eod>< sod > Charleston-born Scott, 51, is also the first African-American to win a state-wide election in South Carolina since the end of the American Civil War in 1865, and only the fifth ever elected to the US Senate.< eod>