Arkansas Is a Suppressed Blue State
The state’s recent legislative session shows how deeply Republicans fear Black voters will once again turn Arkansas blue
Once upon a time, the Arkansas state government was a solid blue oasis in the South. In 2006, Democrat Mike Beebe ran the state as governor while his party swept both chambers of the statehouse, as they had during every election since Reconstruction. Arkansas Democrats also controlled both seats in the U.S. Senate and held one of the state’s four congressional seats. Barack Obama won the 2008 presidential election, further raising hopes the state might continue to have a Democratic future. At the time, I was teaching in a rural Arkansas school in Helena, a majority Black town. My school broadcasted Obama’s inaugural address. My family — I married someone proudly born and raised in the town — talked about how long we had waited for this day.
But like many states across the country, Republican leaders soon realized their best option to seize control of Arkansas was to diminish the power of Black voters. Only the political story of Blackness within my adopted home state and the ongoing efforts to suppress our voices can explain how in a few short years, a state with adequate blue representation became blood red.
