CHARLESTON, South Carolina - A black lawmaker is battling the son of one-time segregationist Strom Thurmond for the Republican congressional nomination here, a contest that could provide an indicator of both racial progress in the South and the Republican party's ability to diversify.

There are black men in the White House and at the helm of the Republican Party, but there hasn't been a black Republican congressman since Oklahoma's J.C. Watts retired in 2003.

Tim Scott, already South Carolina's first black Republican state legislator in a century, has a shot at changing that, but first he has to beat Paul Thurmond, whose father ran for president as a segregationist six decades ago.

Scott is one of three black Republican congressional hopefuls in runoffs across the United States. Five have won their party nominations outright, and several others are expected to, said David Bositis, a senior political analyst at the Washington-based Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.

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