Stories & Essays: America's Crooked Road

Election 2008: A ribbon of blacktop cuts through the heart of Appalachia, a land where folks have strong views about culture, race... and Obama.

The group Janet Turner and Friends play at the Friday Night Jamboree outside the Floyd Country Store in Floyd, Va. The Crooked Road is a heritage music trail in western Virginia, but it easily could describe the hundreds of two-lane highways that cleave the great hardwood forests of Appalachia. The name might also suggest the tortured twists and turns of race relations in America. 2008(Preston Gannaway/Rocky Mountain News)
   
Dave "Mudcat" Saunders (right) is a rural advocate and Democratic political strategist. He hangs out with his brother, Frank, outside his home in Roanoke, Va. He says his house used to be a migrant worker shack. 2008(Preston Gannaway/Rocky Mountain News)
   
Greg Beluschak, 42, (right) and his neighbor John Malone hang out at Beluschak's home overlooking the Clairton coke plant in Clairton, Pennsylvania. Beluschak was born and has spent his whole life in the city. A Democrat, he originally supported Hillary Clinton and now plans to vote for Obama. But he thinks race will be a factor in the area. "I believe there's a lot more black people gonna come out and vote," he said. "And a lot more white people are gonna vote Republican."2008(Preston Gannaway/Rocky Mountain News)
     
  
Jerry Lovelace has lunch with his wife Mary (not pictured) at Big Ed's City Market Restaurant in downtown Raleigh, NC. The Lovelaces visit Big Ed's, a popular spot downtown for locals and politicians, every Monday.2008(Preston Gannaway/Rocky Mountain News)
   
Shilo Tanner browes items at Clossman Antiques Market in Zanesville, Ohio. Tanner says she's been a Democrat her whole life, but plans to vote for McCain. A past Hillary Clinton supporter, she says she sees something in Obama that she doesn't trust. Zanesville is known for its pottery like the cookie jars shown at left.2008(Preston Gannaway/Rocky Mountain News)
   
Dave Prosperino, owner of the Brass Monkey in Clairton, PA is planning on voting for Obama, though most of the Democratic patrons who hang out at his bar are voting for Clinton. "In this town, white people would go to one bar and black people would go to one bar. My bar, everyone gets along. It bothered some people that everyone comes here. But I said, This is America, right?" he said. 2008(Preston Gannaway/Rocky Mountain News)
     
  
The Friday Night Jamboree at the Floyd Country Store has been going on for 99 years. The Appalachian spine that connects Tennessee, Kentucky and North Carolina to Virginia and West Virginia and on up to Ohio and Pennsylvania isn't the only region where race is an undercurrent in this presidential election. But the two campaigns are paying close attention here because it is generally understood that Barack Obama must win his share of these Reagan Democrats/Hillary Democrats to win the White House. 2008(Preston Gannaway/Rocky Mountain News)