WASHINGTON — South Carolina's bitter history of racial politics has drawn national attention before, from Strom Thurmond's segregationist White House run in 1948 and the black daughter he never acknowledged to the Confederate flag flying at the statehouse and Bob Jones University's ban on interracial dating.

Now, 10 months after the election of a self-styled post-racial black president, two South Carolina politicians have helped to reopen the country's deepest, most festering wound and amplify a nearly four-century argument that President Barack Obama has made it clear he wants to avoid.

Republican Rep. Joe Wilson — at first sorry for yelling, "You lie" at Obama as he addressed a joint session of Congress, but defiant since — is being hailed as a hero by conservative activists. They're inviting Wilson to speak in other states and sending him campaign contributions from across the country — almost $2 million since his now-famous shout.

At a large anti-Obama rally outside the U.S. Capitol three days after Wilson's outburst, thousands cheered when one speaker exclaimed, "I thank God for Congressman Wilson!"

Wilson's sudden prominence is being driven, in part, by the anger of another South Carolina politician, House of Representatives Majority Whip Jim Clyburn. Clyburn and other black Democratic lawmakers compelled House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to call a vote reprimanding Wilson that she didn't feel was necessary.

The day after his outburst, Wilson was asked whether it was tied to Obama's race.

"No, no," he told McClatchy. "I respect the president."

Former President Jimmy Carter, a son of the South and a Nobel Peace laureate, poured salt on the wound on Sept. 9 by accusing Wilson of racism on live, prime-time television.

"I think it's based on racism," Carter said Tuesday when he was asked about Wilson's outburst during a town hall meeting in Atlanta. "There is an inherent feeling among many in this country that an African-American should not be president."

"Congressman Wilson believes that President Carter's remarks are a distraction from the task at hand, which is a respectful debate over health insurance reform and working to bring jobs to our communities," said Ryan Murphy, a Wilson spokesman.

In videos on his campaign Web site, joewilsonforcongress.com, Wilson says he's "under attack by liberals" but vows he "will not be muzzled."

Obama has resisted getting drawn into any racial dispute.

Obama said he'd accepted Wilson's apology, and it was time to move on. "The president does not believe the (broader) criticism comes based on the color of his skin," said White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.

The specter of racially tinged politics still looms in South Carolina, however.

The National Newspaper Publishers Association, a group of about 200 black publishers, moved its planned January 2010 convention from Charleston to Charlotte, N.C., after Wilson's yell.

"We are asking people not to go to South Carolina and to make sure we do not spend our hard-earned money in a place where we are not wanted," Danny Bakewell, the association's chairman, told McClatchy.

Clyburn, the highest-ranking African American in Congress, has cited Wilson's 1999 vote against removing the Confederate flag from atop the South Carolina capitol dome — Wilson was one of only seven state senators to oppose the move.

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