SRDC Series #203

The Reference Book on Regional Well-Being:
US Regions, the Black Belt, Appalachia-Abstract
November 1996

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The story of impoverishment in the United States is a story of region, race, and rurality. The South is a region with a special history. The contemporary South is also the largest region of the United States and is the nation's largest rural region. Unfortunately, however, the South and its Black Belt have far more than their just shares of the nation's poor conditions. When poor quality of life is studied, it seems that the large, historic South becomes invisible although its people, places, and impoverishment represent the major part of the nation. It is not that other regions lack problems. They do not, and quality-of-life issues should be dealt with anywhere, wherever they are. But the impoverishment of the South and Black Belt are of such magnitude that if quality of life in the South and Black Belt did improve, it would substantially improve the well-being of the nation as a whole. A region within the South, the historic Black Belt consists of 623 counties that have higher than average concentrations of African-American population. That includes nearly one of every five U.S. counties. The Black Belt counties have at least the national average of 12 percent black residents. The Black Belt, a concept used at the turn of the century by Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois, lies in a large crescent of southern geography running through parts of the 11 Old South, or Black Belt, states of Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas. Living conditions of particular interest in this analysis are poverty, low levels of education, unemployment, and dependence. These conditions are of special concern for rural as well as the urban areas. We shall examine these quality-of-life indicators nationally; for the Northeast, Midwest, West, and South with emphasis on the South; and with added emphasis on the Black Belt and Appalachia. The major emphasis in this report is numerical and percentage data along with selected graphics not fully reported in The Southern Black Belt (Wimberley and Morris 1997). Additional data axe presented here and, in some cases, with interpretations beyond the scope of the accompanying volume. The detail of the tables and graphs presented here also contain implications beyond those highlighted in the present text. Furthermore, the numerical data in the tables can be used to calculate still further findings for special needs.