DATE: Thursday, November 6, 1997            TAG: 9711060451

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A16  EDITION: FINAL 

DATELINE: RICHMOND                          LENGTH:   20 lines

BLACK REPUBLICAN WINS JEFFERSON'S SEAT TWO CENTURIES LATER

Paul Harris became the first black Republican elected to the General Assembly in more than a century, winning the House of Delegates seat slave owner Thomas Jefferson held 200 years ago.

Harris, 33, defeated Democrat Bruce Kirtley, an Albemarle County convenience store owner, in Tuesday's balloting.

``It is fitting that hundreds of years later, that a child of the projects is holding Jefferson's seat,'' Harris said in a telephone interview. ``It's a fitting tribute to the Jeffersonian principles that this country was founded on, that we are all created equal.''

Complete but unofficial returns showed Harris with 14,236 votes, or 63 percent, to 8,541 votes, or 37 percent, for Kirtley.

Send Suggestions or Comments to webmaster@scholar.lib.vt.edu