Reconsidering the Southern Black Belt

摘要: The portion of the South known as “Black Belt” lies at heart what was once cotton-and-tobacco plantation region and retains a large black population. Despite Black Belt’s high poverty rates relatively slow economic growth, its net loss blacks to urban areas over course twentieth century has effectively ended more are now returning. Rural southern still face low-wage economy their prospects conditioned by legacy both agricultural paternalism and, due interregional migration, inner-city decline. A number writers have noted importance familial community ties for returnees express cautious optimism about abilities further erode region’s old social barriers. More generally, anti-poverty strategies in Belt, public private, will be successful only insofar they sensitive exclusion that continues restrict full participation rural labor markets civil society.