The first unpleasant tug of history came before the election, when the yards around Dexter Trogdon Jr.’s house started blooming with Confederate flags. Then last spring, the Ku Klux Klan announced plans to burn a cross in town. A man apparently irked with his black neighbor hung a noose in his yard, and Trogdon started hearing a disturbing new view from some white people: that slavery wasn’t so bad for African Americans.
The 49-year-old bail bondsman knew racial division would be part of the picture when he moved back to this rural, majority-white town where he grew up. But there was one factor he did not expect: the presidential election.
“We were actually getting better,” said Trogdon, picking at his egg whites and fruit at David’s Restaurant, a throwback diner here, noting that the city had been making strides toward improving race relations. Until a year ago, when racism and bigotry seemed to rush out of the woodwork, especially here, in the South. “That stuff came to a halt. ... If you live here, you can feel it. It’s just the way people treat you every day."
