Copyright AL.com
This is a guest opinion column In 2004, as he signed the Executive Order creating the 12-county Black Belt Action Commission, Governor Bob Riley said to the Tuscaloosa News, “The Black Belt has been studied and studied…some might say, nearly to death.” With all due respect to Gov. Riley, my experience as a native of Greenville and Butler County, in the heart of Alabama’s Black Belt, who is pursuing his doctorate at the University of Alabama (UA), says that this is not true. I discovered UA’s Education Policy Center (EPC), where I now work while pursuing my Master’s in Public Administration in the Fall of 2021. In the graduate course “Economic and Community Development and Higher Education,” I heard speakers like Thomasville Mayor Sheldon Day, State Representative Bill Poole, among others. My professor, Stephen Katsinas, shared several of the nine Black Belt 2020 issue briefs with the class, and it struck a chord: I’d never seen “Butler County” in print aside from the Greenville Advocate before. I did everything in my power to join the EPC and be a part of the work to study and share with stakeholders issues I’d grown up with in a region largely ignored. This propelled me to pursue a doctorate in Political Science, where I became involved in UA’s $93 million Driving Regional Innovation through Vehicular Electrification (DRIVE) proposal as part of a $1 billion Economic Development Administration national competition. DRIVE represented the most comprehensive response in fifty years by one of Alabama’s research universities to the underlying problems faced in the Black Belt, drawing upon the 15 Black Belt 2020 and 2022 issue briefs—and here I wish to thank forward-thinking donors Hugh Thomas and Ross Pritchard, who supported this research. At the time, it was a lot of money for a lot of good to be done, building and bolstering the pipeline from K-12 to “the workforce of tomorrow,” as we developed the workforce we already had within “Wider West Alabama” and the Black Belt region... but that was a lot over my head at the time, as I just saw it as an excuse to share with the world just how different Alabama was where I’m from. While DRIVE wasn’t funded, my interest continues through Black Belt 2025, in partnership with AL.com and UA’s Center for Business and Economic Development, and with the right people, we hope to continue this effort. Here’s some of what we’ve learned over the past six years: Poverty and Population Decline: Persistent poverty affects 19 of 24 Black Belt counties, with poverty rates increasing since the pandemic, while state rates fell, coinciding with a long-term population decline and a 13% drop in K-12 enrollment. Workforce Challenges: Labor force participation consistently lags the state by 17 to 20 percentage points. Leaders like Donny Jones of WestAlabamaWorks! stress the need for comprehensive wraparound services (childcare and transportation) – with single-parent households making up 72% of households in Perry County – to reconnect prime-age workers with the workforce. Infrastructure and Health: The region has an infrastructure deficit (broadband, failing wastewater), contributing to dire health outcomes (30% higher COVID-19 death rate in 2020). Education: K-12 schools struggle with low proficiency and inexperienced teachers. Structural Flaw: A critical flaw undermining reform is the lack of a uniform definition for the Black Belt across government agencies. My work with 20+ Black Belt issue briefs paints a picture of “two Alabamas,” where state-level progress consistently masks a crisis defined by persistent poverty, demographic decline, and a critical deficit in essential infrastructure and human capital. My findings over the past five years have been overwhelming, and sometimes it’s surprising, other times it’s not. What’s happening across these 24 counties is not one of a few isolated problems, but a complex, interdependent ecosystem of poverty, deficient infrastructure, and human capital challenges. State leadership, like Gov. Kay Ivey and her team over the last 11 years, and Kenneth Boswell at the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs, has made great strides over the past few years, and as editor of the series, I try my best to make sure to give credit where credit is due every time, every brief. But don’t get me wrong, people have come to the region to help and left a bad taste in their mouths. It’s hard to feel optimistic, but the solution is not more money, but a targeted, sustainable regional strategy that leverages indigenous programs, breaks down institutional silos, and explicitly addresses the historical legacy of exclusion.
