Race and Politics in Arkansas

Boston Globe:

Arkansas remains the only state from the former Confederacy never to elect an African-American to Congress or any statewide office -- and last week it soundly rejected the man set to become the nation's first black president.

Barack Obama lost by 20 percentage points, even though fellow Democrats control all of Arkansas' statewide offices, both chambers of the Legislature and three of its four congressional districts.

Many blacks say race is the reason, and consider the poor showing to be another frustrating chapter in Arkansas' long and tortured civil-rights history.

...One reason no blacks have been elected to Congress in Arkansas is demographics: Unlike many Southern states, it has no predominantly black congressional districts. In a state of less than 3 million people, about 16 percent of them black, it would be difficult to draw up such a district.

...Arkansas Republicans have fared better than Democrats in nominating blacks to statewide office. Kenneth "Muskie" Harris won a GOP runoff for lieutenant governor against former Nazi and Ku Klux Klan sympathizer Ralph Forbes in 1990 but lost to Jim Guy Tucker in the general election. Retired educator Rose Bryant Jones ran for secretary of state in 1998 but lost to Democrat Sharon Priest. Chris Morris, part of then-Gov. Mike Huckabee's adminstration, lost the treasurer's race in 2006 to Democrat Martha Shoffner.