THE US secret service is investigating an apparent effigy of Barack Obama hung from a shopfront in Georgia.
Local TV news showed what appeared to be a black doll at the end of a noose on the main road in Plains, home of Jimmy Carter, a former Democratic president.
Witnesses said the doll bore a sign with Mr Obama’s name. The figure was quickly removed by the fire department after it was discovered on Saturday.
The election of Mr Obama, the first African-American president, incensed US racists and his policies have provoked angry conservatives to compare him with Hitler and Stalin. However the number of threats to his life so far has been roughly similar to those against Bill Clinton and George Bush at a similar point in their presidencies, the US secret service director told a House of Representatives committee last month.
The tiny town of Plains, 200km south of Atlanta, is proud of its connection to Mr Carter, president from 1977 to 1981, and residents said they hoped news of the effigy would not overshadow the link.
Georgia was long a hotbed of racial animosity and when Mr Carter was inaugurated governor in 1971, he declared: “The time for racial discrimination is over.”
In October 2008 two students in Kentucky hung an effigy of Mr Obama in what they called a Halloween prank. They were arrested, but charges were later dropped.
During Mr Bush’s presidency crowds in Iran, Iraq, Pakistan and across the Muslim world frequently burned effigies of him. – (Guardian service)