HELENA-WEST HELENA, Ark. AP – Shades of the region’s racist past came creeping back this week just as the South could be poised to play a pivotal role in electing the nation’s first black president.
An alleged plot by two young white supremacists to go on a killing spree and assassinate Barack Obama, though far-fetched by most accounts, may conjure images of the Jim Crow era for some. But it doesn’t necessarily reflect the modern South, which in recent years has seen a huge influx of immigrants and transplants from other regions, as well as the empowerment of a black electorate that could decide the Nov. 4 election.
