Do you know this man? That's Sanford Bishop, Democratic Representative for GA-02. He's won his last two elections by 2/3 majorities. There's a Republican running against him this year, but without much chance.
What's Sanford's secret? Majority black district?
Nope, GA-02 is in far southwest Georgia. It does have 41.45% black and 3.23% hispanic population, but how does 44.68% add up to 66%? And GA-02 is 41.81% Republican. Mostly rural, too. Somebody correct my arithmetic, but it seems about a third of white people in Bishop's district, many of them Republicans, voted for him.
As Wikipedia puts it:
Even though the district is 60% white, the district has elected Democrat Sanford Bishop, an African-American, since 1993, making Bishop the only Black representative of a White-majority district in the South.
Why are white people voting for Bishop?
Wikipedia claims:
Bishop has had a few close races, nonetheless, his standing as a conservative Democrat has helped him win the support of many white voters.
He hasn't had any close races lately. Locals do indeed perceive him as conservative, and he's even a member of the Blue Dog Coalition. However, unlike a certain white Georgia Blue Dog (Jim Marshall, GA-08) he's in favor of health insurance for all children. Bishop gets an A from themiddleclass.org and he gets an A+ from IAVA on veteran's issues.
On at least one measure, this guy's better than Barack Obama, who also got an A+ from themiddleclass.org, but only a B from IAVA. Whether IAVA scores are actually "better" is a matter of opinion, of course, but in a district with a lot of military bases, a lot of people probably think so.
So, what's this about white people in Georgia won't vote for a black man?
Sometimes people everywhere just vote for the candidate they think will actually represent them.