Surviving in America's Black Belt amid pandemic and job loss
When the rest of the country catches a cold, a place like the Black Belt catches the flu, said Lydia Chatmon, who works with the Selma Center for Non-Violence and helped coordinate with the Black Belt Community Foundation on last week's donations. Stretching from Louisiana to Virginia, the Black Belt is a crescent-shaped agricultural region first known for the color of its soil and then for its mostly black population. The area also took the hardest hit from unemployment during the economic shutdown, with eight Black Belt counties having jobless rates near or above 20%. And more than $4 million in pandemic assistance grants announced last week will go to agencies that serve Black Belt counties in Alabama. While broadband access is spotty across much of rural Alabama, some entire counties lack service in the Black Belt.