Have you ever heard of America’s Black Belt? No, we don’t mean martial arts!
The Black Belt is a geopolitical region across the South. Its name originally referred to land where the soil was fertile and agriculture was strong, which meant it also had a high population of enslaved people. Now it refers to a Southern swath of counties where Black residents are the majority of the population.
Learn more by watching this one-minute video about the Black Belt:
These areas once thrived under Black leaders who represented their communities, but many of them lost their positions of power once white supremacists started disenfranchising Black voters after Reconstruction.
This rise in voter suppression in the South went hand-in-hand with an intentional whitewashing of the history taught in public schools – an effort led by the United Daughters of the Confederacy.
This erasure of Black History is one reason a lot of us never learned about the Black Belt. But we can change that by sharing the stories of these vibrant communities, as well as the history they are still making today, like Plymouth, North Carolina just electing their first Black female mayor, Crystal Davis, in 2025! And come back next week for another easy action to celebrate Black History Month.