Race, Politics and a Bridge in South Carolina
A powerful congressman, James E. Clyburn, wants to connect this forlorn central South Carolina community of about 500, across an artificial lake and swamp, to the equally destitute settlement of Lone Star, population 214, using nine miles of bridge and roadway.
The House majority whip has staked his pride and a lifetime’s tempered pugnacity on ending that echo and this hamlet’s isolation with a new bridge. He faces the derision of hunters, environmentalists and much of South Carolina's political establishment, who all see it as a pork-barrel waste of $150 million.
Undergirding Mr. Clyburn’s 10-year fight for what opponents mock as a “bridge from nowhere to nowhere” is the issue of race, the starting point in his four-decade ascent. The potential beneficiaries are mostly poor, rural blacks; the opponents are largely whites. ADAM NOSSITER in The New York Times.