{"id":1805,"date":"2017-12-21T20:03:58","date_gmt":"2017-12-22T01:03:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/hrj\/?p=1805"},"modified":"2020-06-06T17:25:00","modified_gmt":"2020-06-06T21:25:00","slug":"the-contingent-victory-of-the-alabama-black-belt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/hrj\/2017\/12\/the-contingent-victory-of-the-alabama-black-belt\/","title":{"rendered":"The Contingent Victory of the Alabama Black Belt"},"content":{"rendered":"

by\u00a0Danielle Purifoy<\/em><\/p>\n

On December 12th, the Alabama Black Belt did something that 68% of white Alabamians refused to do\u2014reject the election of a white supremacist sexual abuser to the U.S. Senate. Ninety-six percent of black voters in Alabama<\/a> <\/span>supported Democrat Doug Jones, a candidate who did not so much inspire confidence in his political agenda<\/a><\/span> as he presented a far less loathsome option than Republican Roy Moore. Black voters in the Black Belt elected Doug Jones by a higher margin<\/a> <\/span>than they did for Clinton in 2016, and Obama in 2012 and 2008\u2014all the more extraordinary considering the levels of voter suppression<\/a><\/span> in Alabama and the fact that special elections typically have far less voter turnout than presidential elections.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the most important aspect of this victory\u2014besides the NAACP\u2019s brilliant mobilization<\/a> <\/span>strategy in collaboration with LGBT organizations\u2014is the fact that the Black Belt changed the political calculus of a state that demonstrates little investment in its residents\u2014regardless of political party. Named for its fertile black loam soil, which was cultivated by the hands of the enslaved, the Alabama Black Belt raised \u201cKing Cotton\u201d\u2014 and much of the antebellum economy of the Western Hemisphere. Though it has always been a site of black political resistance<\/a><\/span>\u2014it is the birthplace of the original Black Panther Party\u2014it is also now a site of hostile disinvestment.<\/p>\n

Senator-elect Jones now has a mandate\u2014and moral imperative\u2014to mobilize long-awaited resources and power to the region. He can start with the basics\u2014clean water and sanitation<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Two weeks ago, for the second time since 2011, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights investigated<\/a> <\/span>systemic human rights violations in the Alabama Black Belt, particularly with regards to basic services. The difference this time is that Special Rapporteur Philip Alston visited the region<\/a> <\/span>to see the conditions firsthand. In 2011, Catherine Coleman Flowers<\/a><\/span>, executive director of the Alabama Center for Rural Enterprise (ACRE), gave testimony about conditions in the Black Belt to the former Special Rapporteur, Catarina de Albuquerque, who reported that\u00a0<\/span>82% of Black Belt residents rely on on-site sanitation systems<\/span>, with no access to conventional sewer lines<\/a>. In just one Black Belt county\u2014Lowndes County\u2014the \u00a0Alabama Department of Public Health estimated that 40-90% of residents lack access to adequate wastewater sanitation infrastructure. A Baylor University study<\/a> <\/span>published earlier this year revealed that 34.5% of residents tested in Lowndes County suffered from hookworm due to exposure to raw sewage deposits in and around their own homes.<\/p>\n

Several factors make simple solutions to this problem nonviable. Though the Black Belt\u2019s rurality makes decentralized systems like septic tanks more economically feasible in many cases than traditional sewer lines, the clay soil that covers many parts of the region will not drain<\/span> well enough<\/a> for a traditional septic system. More advanced household systems typically cost as much or more than the median household income<\/span><\/a> of the region.<\/p>\n

Public funding for infrastructure presents a dilemma; state and federal agencies now preside over loan programs for basic infrastructure\u2014like the Clean Water State Revolving Fund<\/a><\/span>\u2014which prioritize creditworthiness over necessity in making funding decisions. Most Black Belt\u00a0communities cannot pursue economic development without access to credit and credit access generally requires some economic development. Additionally, Alabama has the lowest<\/span> property taxes<\/a> in the continental United States (second only to Hawaii), and the Black Belt has some of the highest rates<\/span> of absentee landownership in the state<\/a>\u2014mostly by the timber industry and\u00a0other agricultural interests with little investment in contributing tax dollars to local development.<\/p>\n

Finally, until at least 2014, some Black Belt residents living with raw sewage were jailed and fined for endangering public health, contributing to an already dire black land loss crisis and creating a chilling effect on disclosures of living conditions for advocacy purposes. In the last known case, a minister in Pike County AL was arrested<\/span><\/a> due to raw sewage leaking from a failed septic tank on the property of the church he served, despite rejected efforts to connect to local sewer lines.<\/p>\n

These are the mechanisms of structural racism and poverty. The consequences of inaccess to sanitation infrastructure (which impacts water quality)\u2014just one of the myriad challenges facing the Black Belt\u2014touch every facet of life for residents, from health outcomes to job prospects; from education to generational wealth. A change in those conditions could mean a transformation of the region.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Black Belt infrastructure is Black Power.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the waning days of the Jones campaign, the Senator-elect was flanked at a Saturday event<\/span><\/a> by two members of Congress\u2014Senator Corey Booker and Representative Terri Sewell.<\/p>\n

Sewell stumped for Jones\u2019 commitment to improving health care access, and Booker\u2014who has become heavily involved with addressing infrastructure challenges and other environmental justice issues<\/a> <\/span>across the country\u2014focused on Jones\u2019 potential to protect the future of the Black Belt region.<\/p>\n

Flowers, who has been advocating for better sanitation access in the Black Belt for over 15 years, emphasized that Jones\u2019 win requires action on this issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow that Senator Jones is in office, he needs to use his position to help all citizens in Alabama, whether they reside in rural or urban communities,\u201d she said via email.
\n\u201cHe needs to help erase wastewater infrastructure inequality.\u201d<\/p>\n

Black voters generally, and black women especially, stepped forward last week to protect themselves\u2014and by extension, the nation\u2014from the worst of American power and excess. This is not a \u201cmiracle\u201d so much as it is an old and reliable pattern.<\/p>\n

The real miracle will occur when Jones breaks the old and reliable pattern of Democrats forgetting who put them in office.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Danielle Purifoy is a lawyer (HLS \u201912) and a current Ph.D candidate in Environmental Politics and African American Studies at Duke University. She studies environmental racism and black geographies in the U.S. South. She is also an editor for Scalawag, a magazine devoted to Southern politics and culture.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by\u00a0Danielle Purifoy On December 12th, the Alabama Black Belt did something that 68% of white Alabamians refused to do\u2014reject the election of a white supremacist sexual abuser to the U.S. Senate. Ninety-six percent of black voters in Alabama supported Democrat Doug Jones, a candidate who did not so much inspire confidence in his political agenda […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101946,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-online-journal"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/hrj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/hrj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/hrj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/hrj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/101946"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/hrj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/hrj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1805\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/hrj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/hrj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/hrj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}