Arkansas Is a Suppressed Blue State

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…