The “corridor of shame” has become cluttered with presidential candidates travelling through South Carolina delivering ritual denunciations of its racial and educational inequality.

But, when the dust has settled from tomorrow’s Democratic primary, black children along this strip of impoverished districts stretching along Interstate 95 will still be sitting in the same crumbling, leaking and rat-infested classrooms where their grandparents were taught.

Outside the J.V. Martin Junior High School in Dillon, Donald Bethea, 14, said: “It’s all messed up. Maybe if Barack Obama wins it will be better. I don’t know.”

Although the election has become all about “change”, precious little of that commodity can be found in this corner of the Old South. This is where the Confederate battle flag from the Civil War still flutters outside the state capitol in Columbia, next to a large statue of Ben “Pitchfork” Tillman, a former Governor who justified and even participated in lynchings.

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Although black people will account for half the turnout in the primary tomorrow, the majority white population consistently votes Republican. They have elected a state government that spends millions of dollars resisting legal action designed to provide funding for more than a “minimally adequate education.” That case, which began 15 years ago and is still being considered by South Carolina’s supreme court, first spawned the term “corridor of shame” — the title of a documentary made by Bud Ferillo.

He highlighted underfunding in dozens of poor rural districts where the overwhelming majority of pupils were black and on free lunches, and about half drop out before high school graduation.

Ancient textbooks in libraries talk of the possibility that a man might one day land on the moon. Three-quarters of the schools were deemed unsatisfactory or below average — compared with 17 per cent for South Carolina as a whole, thanks to richer, whiter districts supplementing the educational subsidies with local property taxes.

Tomorrow Mr Ferillo will support Mr Obama, who visited the J.V. Martin school in August. “Windows have been broken, ceilings have caved in, roofs have leaked, bathrooms have not worked,” Mr Obama said afterwards. “When a child goes to a school that’s crumbling, is it any wonder that she gets a sense her education is not important?” A third of the 560 pupils read at three or more grades below the national average and many 12 and 13-year-olds cannot identify all the letters of the alphabet.

Outside the school this week, Lavaris Hargrove, 13, described his “rickety buildings, rickety food and rickety teachers”, one of whom, he said, had told him that Mr Obama was a “bad man”. Was that teacher white? “Yep.” Hillary Clinton, whose husband remains enormously popular among many black voters, has also campaigned against the “corridor of shame”, running advertisements saying that the plight of such children is invisible to President Bush.

John Edwards, who was born into the bitter racial divisions of pre-Civil Rights South Carolina, has visited Clarendon county to pay tribute to a black school principal, J. A. DeLaine, who in 1947 began legal action that culminated in the Brown v Board of Education ruling outlawing segregation in schools.

Much of the economic and racial inequality has, however, remained. Delaine’s son, Joseph, has said: “The community is no better off than it was 50 years ago — you’re dealing with a Third World country”.

South Carolina’s Education Superintendent, Jim Rex, the only Democrat elected to statewide office, said: “I wish there was someone who could ride in on a white horse and change things.” Asked if the attention of presidential candidates would help, he replied: “I don’t think that South Carolinians or South Carolina legislators are going to be particularly swayed one way or the other . . . We’re the ones who will have to solve it.”

Aides for Mark Sanford, the Republican Governor, have dismissed the debate. “By and large we recognise this for what it is, which is to get on TV, rather than really address educational challenges,” said one. He said that schools in Washington were among the most lavishly funded yet consistently ranked last in performance. “They don’t have to come all the way to South Carolina to see more money is not always the answer.”

Tomorrow’s election is a rare chance for African American voters in South Carolina to make their voices heard. There are limits, though, to Mr Obama’s appeal within the poorest sections of this community. According to some polls he gains most support from middle-class and young black people who see in this Harvard-educated law professor a validation of their own life choices. Older and less educated African-Americans are more likely to tilt towards Mrs Clinton.

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