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Roland Burris
American politician
Also known as: Roland Wallace Burris
Roland Burris (born Aug. 3, 1937, Centralia, Ill., U.S.) is an American Democratic politician who was the first African American elected to statewide office in Illinois. His appointment as U.S. senator (2009–10) to fill the seat vacated by Pres. Barack Obama made him the fourth African American to serve in the Senate since Reconstruction. Burris grew up in downstate Illinois, and he earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from Southern Illinois University in 1959. He received a law degree from Howard University in 1963, and, after moving to Chicago, became a bank examiner for the U.S. Department of the ...(100 of 731 words)