A Local Election’s Results Raise Major Questions on Race

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WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Officially, the Republican Party of Palm Beach County rejected Derek Black’s recent election as a committeeman because he failed to sign a loyalty oath.

But such technicalities hardly explain how a minuscule election — Mr. Black won 167 of 287 votes — has attracted the attention of hate groups nationwide and opponents like the Anti-Defamation League. This, rather, seems to reflect heightened sensitivity to issues of race in the age of Obama, and the intrusive power of history.

Palm Beach County after all, is a hive of Jewish retirees like Sid Dinerstein, 62, the county’s Republican chairman, while Mr. Black is more than just a gangly 19-year-old college student with a taste for politics.

He is also the son of Don Black, a former national grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. At age 11, he contributed a “kids page” to his father’s “white nationalist” Web site, Stormfront.org, where the message boards disparage nonwhites and have singled out Mr. Dinerstein, describing him as “another filthy stinking Jew.”

The younger Mr. Black denies being a white supremacist.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/12/us/12florida.html?_r=1&th&emc=th