Retired Senator J.B. Banks, Missouri's first and only Black Senate floor leader, was buried in his hometown last week after having suffered a heart attack in Las Vegas at the age of 79. Banks earned a B.S. degree in mathematics from Lincoln University in Jefferson City, with a minor in physics. Banks was the first African-American lawmaker to be elected assistant majority floor leader by the Democratic Caucus of both the House and the Senate. In 1988, Banks' colleagues in the Senate selected him majority leader, the first African-American lawmaker ever elected to one of the four top leadership posts in the Missouri General Assembly.