The Effects of Concentrated Poverty on Black and White Political Participation in the Southern Black Belt

The Black-Belt region of the United States, also referred to as the “cotton counties” or “plantation counties,” was defined by Booker T. Washington as “counties where Blacks outnumber Whites” (Washington 1965). Currently, it is characterized as a southern area with a sizable Black population in parts of Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, and Tennessee (Wimberly et al. 1992, 1993). Historically, high rates of concentrated poverty and social isolation have pervaded Black-Belt counties because of their large populations of disproportionately poor, uneducated, unemployed, and politically powerless residents (Morrison 1987, 210; Falk and Rankin 1992, 300; Swanson et al. 1994; Wimberly 1997).