The soviets were still occupied at home at that time (international communism was a pipe dream), but you could legitimately say the races in America were divided back then. That's how people wanted it. Black folk kept to their side of town and were doing fairly well. The KKK was accepted as a normal social organization in Oklahoma at the time, like the Rotary Club, and it wouldn't take much to convince White people that a "darkie" had raped a woman.

It was a little later that the communists noticed and started agitating racial divisions to sew discord.