By Paula Zahn
CNN
NEW YORK (CNN) -- After ex-"Seinfeld" star Michael Richards' bigoted tirade at a comedy club last month, my staff and I started talking about what could possibly drive a person to say such vile and hateful things.
This discussion raised a series of questions we decided to explore on our program: Is there an inner racist in many of us, just waiting to explode? And is racism thriving today, just underneath a well-masked surface of political correctness and civility?
As we started gathering research on these questions, we read about Vidor, Texas, an East Texas community of 11,000 formerly known as a "sundown town," a place where African-Americans weren't welcome after dark. Like many other towns around the United States in the early 20th century, Vidor was rather open about being closed to blacks.
So we decided to find out what this town looks like today and how its legacy of racism has affected its efforts to integrate and heal the wounds of years past.
We sent correspondent Keith Oppenheim, who filed a memorable report from Vidor last week showing that much progress has been made.read more
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