"Real change is more than problematic in a state so warped by its past that it can continue to officially admire a figure like Tillman. f you were to walk into some of those schools — which are spread along a crescent-shaped corridor on either side of Interstate 95 from the southern edge of North Carolina to the northern edge of Georgia — you might forget that you were in the United States. Among many other problems, ancient plumbing has resulted in raw sewage backing up into some schools, bringing in vermin and unbearable odors. The first school profiled in “Corridor of Shame” was built in 1896.
In presidential elections, South Carolina is reliably Republican. A state with Pitchfork Ben standing guard at the Capitol hardly could be otherwise."

The Republican "mantra" is always focused on personal responsibility as being the only factor as to whether a human being is successful in life. How totally ignorant. The odds are stacked against the poor from good nutrition, to a good education. I'd rather see our monies being spent on programs for the betterment of society as opposed to this war profiteering.

I read this story this morning in the Times. It serves to remind us all how far we have to go in race relations whether Barack Obama wins or not.

Surely this can't be right:

Ben Tillman (1847-1918), an up-and-coming Democrat in 1896, had been elected to the U.S. Senate from South Carolina in 1894. He had previously served as governor of South Carolina from 1890-1894, a term in which he won a reputation as one of the early Southern demagogues.

A Democrat?

Yes when the Democrats where the party of apartheid and slavery. That changed in the 50s and 60s and Nixon devised his southern strategy and effectively switched roles with the Democrats. If your going to summon history, please get it right.

You tell them ratty, I am from from WV but lived in southern Virginia for a few years. If a white person walked down the side walk, the African Americans got off and walked in the streets. I have seen road gangs with men in chains, striped suits, iron ball on each end, and goons standing over them with shotguns, singing the praises of their captors. As a child I did not understand; but as an adult I see the light of wrong.

@NStuff, Ben Tillman is just the kind of guy that Reagan, the Republican Party, and Strom Thurmond have embraced in their Southern Strategy.

Good riddance, you can have him, he's all yours now. Don't you feel proud?