If you look at Southern voting now, it doesn't seem like race is a major factor either. That is to say, Blacks tend to vote one way and Whites the other, as in other states, but Republican voters in the South aren't voting for segregation or to keep Blacks down. Race may have played a role in shifting some states to the Republican column, but it was hardly the monolithic factor that some make it out to be.
Race never entered the equation for me. One of the most important factors, for me, was the democrat stance on gun control, it wasn't so harsh then, but I could see what was coming. RKBA may be an issue that many Republicans don't get worked up about, so be it, but RKBA is a litmus test for adherence to constitutional principles in general. Things all boil down to rule by men, or rule by law. Constitutions are barriers to democrats, fortresses to republicans. We need to remember this, above all else.