Black Belt (U.S. region)

As a Black Belt (English for Black Belt ) are labeled differently defined areas in the United States of America.

Black Belt as physiogeografischer term

Already in the 19th century, the term Black Belt was used for a region in the sense of physical geography in the states of Mississippi and Alabama, which had been given this name due to its fertile dark calcareous soil. This Black Belt is a narrow long strip of about 480 km long and 40-50 km wide. It runs from the northern border of the State of Mississippi in a southeasterly direction to the middle of Alabama inside. The area was up to the Civil War, one of the main areas of cultivation of cotton. Currently, here with cotton also cattle and the cultivation of soybeans spread.

Black Belt as a sociological concept

About the physiogeografischen term beyond Black Belt was later also used in the sociological sense. Here he refers to those regions in the southern states, which have a particularly high proportion of African Americans in the total population. The sociologist Arthur F. Raper defined the term in 1936 as the entirety of the 200 counties with a share of African Americans over 50%. A given of the University of Kentucky in order and in 1997 published study by Ronald C. Wimberly and Libby V. Morris defined Black Belt as a predominantly contiguous territory of 623 counties in the eleven southern states of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia. These counties are predominantly rural, economically, structurally weak and have a share of African Americans is higher than the U.S. national average. In the 2000 census, had Jefferson County (Mississippi ) compared with 86.5% of all counties the highest proportion of African Americans. The Black Belt as defined by Wimberly and Morris has in all regions of the U.S. to the lowest levels of per capita income, the lowest average standard of education and the highest unemployment rate. In the Black Belt are essentially those of the county politically dominated by the Republican Party South, in which receives a majority in presidential elections the candidate of the Democratic Party.