Racism in South: Any Hope?

In 1865, at the end of civil war between northern states and racist southern states, and following the victory of northern states, president Abraham Lincoln announced the end of slavery in the US. Lincoln was assassinated in the same year.

About 100 years later in 1964, three students who were active about civil rights for all citizens, black and white, went to the state of Mississippi to encourage black people to participate in voting for presidential election. They were shot and killed in Nebosha county. There was conspiracy that the county police and the members of the racist white-supremacist Christian organization of Ku Klux Klan (or KKK), originally founded in 1865 (end of civil war), were behind their murder. In 1968, in a biased trial in the state of Mississippi, there was no murder charge given. Last week, trial of the 79-year-old missioner head of KKK in that county has been started again after 41 years.

In 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King, in his famous I-have-a-dream speech in the Washington D.C. march, said: "... I have a dream that .... [black people] will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character...". (listen here). Dr. King was assassinated in 1968.

In 2004 election, there was conspiracy that black people in the state of Florida were harassed not to vote, because of critical role of electoral vote of this state in the national presidential election, and the default tendency of black voters to Democrats.
Add to all this the result of 2004 election, that most of the counties and states that 150 years ago were in racist southern states in civil war, are among republican red states in the last election.

Despite of the relationship between media and KKK (in an article by the leading award-winning author Michael Parenti), do you think there is any hope for the southern states to be one day free of radical racism? Do you think that a physical war (civil war) is enough to end slavery or a cultural revolution is needed? Let's hope that we'll see justice at least in the current trial in the state of Mississippi.