Black Belt (region of Alabama)
Coordinates: 32°36′41.82″N 87°34′39.05″W / 32.6116167°N 87.5775139°W
The Black Belt is a region of the U.S. state of Alabama. The term originally referred to the region's rich, black topsoil. But because of the plantation agriculture supported by that topsoil, in which the workers were initially slaves and then sharecroppers, the population of the region was and is overwhelmingly black. This sociological definition of the "Black Belt" refers to a much larger region of the Southern United States, stretching from Texas to Maryland but centered on the Black Belt of Alabama.
In the antebellum and Jim Crow eras, the white elites of the Black Belt were powerful in Alabama state politics. Montgomery, the Black Belt's largest city, has been the capital of Alabama since 1846. Since the black population gained the right to vote, the voting patterns of the Black Belt have been in contrast to those of the rest of Alabama.
Montgomery and Selma and other parts of the Black Belt were important centers of activity during the Civil Rights movement.
Geology
The region is underlain by a thin layer of rich, black topsoil developed atop the chalk of the Selma Group, a geologic unit dating to the Cretaceous Period. The soils have been developing continuously at least since the Pliocene Epoch. Because the underlying chalk is nearly impermeable to groundwater, the black soils tend to dry out during the summer. The natural vegetation of the chalk belt consisted mainly of oak-hickory forest interspersed with shortgrass prairie, while the sandy ridges flanking the chalk belt supported pine forest.
History
Lacking a reliable source of water, the earliest settlers avoided farming the black soil in the belt until the discovery that deep artesian wells could be drilled to supply people, livestock, and crops. Beginning in the 1830s, cotton plantations became Alabama's greatest source of wealth. Before the American Civil War, these plantations were worked by thousands of African American slaves. The region attained the highest density of population in the state, although slaves were prevented from voting. The planters and their elected representatives of the Black Belt had political power in the state legislature that they retained after the state began to develop more urbanized areas and an industrial economy.
The Black Belt's largest city, Montgomery, became the capital of Alabama in 1846. Because Alabama was geographically central to the slave states, Montgomery was also the original capital of the Confederate States of America. The region's distance from the front lines during the American Civil War saved it from much of the ravages of war. Many of the Greek Revival mansions of the 19th-century planters have survived, as have some of the plantations' slave quarters. Gaineswood in Demopolis and Magnolia Grove in Greensboro, Alabama are among those that can be visited by tourists today.
Although the infestation of the cotton crop by the boll weevil destroyed much of the plantation system around 1910–20, the lingering effects of a cotton economy remain evident. Many descendants of freed slaves continued to work as sharecroppers and laborers after emancipation. After the boll weevil and increased mechanization of agriculture, thousands of African Americans left Alabama to go to industrial cities of the North and Midwest in the Great Migration of the first half of the 20th century. African Americans make up the majority proportion of the population in most rural Black Belt counties. Today the term "Black Belt" is commonly used by scholars and the media as a demographic characterization, as well as a geologic one.
Some of the most important events of the American Civil Rights Movement (1955–1968) occurred in the Black Belt of Alabama. These included Rosa Parks' refusal to give up her bus seat, which led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott; the Selma to Montgomery marches; and voter registration reform drives, focusing in Selma, Alabama, to enable African Americans to vote (see Voting Rights Act). They had been largely disfranchised after conservative white Democrats regained political power in the state in the late 19th century. Their changes to voter registration rules and electoral procedures also disfranchised many poor whites.
Today, Alabama's Black Belt includes some of the poorest counties in the United States. Along with high rates of poverty, the area is typified by declining populations, a primarily agricultural landscape with low-density settlement, high unemployment, poor access to education and medical care, substandard housing and high rates of crime.
Counties
The list of counties comprising the Black Belt is often dependent on the context but historically includes 18 counties:
Clarke, Conecuh, Escambia, Monroe, and Washington counties are sometimes included in the region, but are usually considered part of Alabama's southern coastal plain. Lamar does not meet the soil traits but is often included due to its lack of business enterprise.
Demographics
As of the 2000 census[1], Alabama's 18-county Black Belt region had a population of 589,041 (13.25% of the state's total population). There were 226,191 households and 153,357 families residing within the region.
The racial makeup of the Black Belt region was 52.24% African American (307,734 people), 45.87% White (270,175 people), 0.25% Native American (1,472 people), 0.52% Asian (3,067 people), 0.03% Pacific Islander (153 people), 0.31% from other races (1,850 people), and 0.78% from two or more races (4,590 people). Hispanics or Latinos of any race were 1.09% of the population (6,404 people).
The median income for a household in the Black Belt region was $27,130, and the median income for a family was $35,698. Males had a median income of $32,226 versus $22,021 for females. The per capita income for the region was $15,633.
A July 1, 2007 U.S. Census Bureau estimate placed the region's population at 575,783, a decline of 2.25% since 2000.[2]
Politics
In electoral maps of the late 20th and early 21st-centuries, the Black Belt has appeared as a "Blue Belt" because of the voters' strong support for the Democratic Party. With the exception of parts of the city of Birmingham, the outline of Alabama's 7th congressional district roughly matches the western Black Belt region. Terri Sewell currently represents that district in the United States House of Representatives.
See also
References
- ↑ "American FactFinder". United States Census Bureau. Retrieved 2008-01-31.
- ↑ "Table 1: Annual Estimates of the Population for Counties of Alabama: April 1, 2000 to July 1, 2007" (CSV). 2007 Population Estimates. United States Census Bureau, Population Division. 2008-03-27. Retrieved 2008-03-20.
- Tullos, Allen. "The Black Belt" Southern Spaces, (April 19, 2004)
- Rogers, William Warren, and Robert David Ward, Leah Rawls Atkins, and Wayne Flynt. Alabama: The History of a Deep South State. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1994. ISBN 0-8173-0714-1
- Phillips, Doug (2004) "Alabama Black Belt", Discovering Alabama Teacher's Guide.
External links
- "Black Belt Fact Book", University of Alabama Institute for Rural Health Research
- "Alabama's Black Belt", Birmingham News special report
- Black Belt Community Foundation
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