Special Report

It's a never-ending project.

Each year brings new statistics, new material. Each year, folks native and new to the Black Belt pull out data, pull out grant applications and economic proposals and attempt to weave those elements together into a skein of ideas that might help a downtrodden region resurrect itself.

No matter where the thread runs, however, it winds inevitably back to the people who call the Black Belt home.

David Wilson was vice president for university outreach at Auburn University until 2006 when he left to become chancellor of the University of Wisconsin system. Wilson's position was a big stick to wield in Alabama, a way to use the power of a school to solve some long-standing problems.

It didn't take Wilson long to focus his energy on the perpetual problems of the Black Belt. It was an easy choice. He grew up there, in rural Marengo County.

He's lived within the folds of the Black Belt's quilt, seen the brilliance in its character and felt the tears in its fabric.

For Wilson, one of the major hurdles in the Black Belt continues to be race. Breaking down those barriers, he argues, is key to bringing prosperity to the area.

“I strongly believe that if the Black Belt has a reasonable chance of participating in the global economy, leaders must be tapped who understand that working together, across racial lines, is the only way,” he said from his Auburn University office before departing for Wisconsin in the summer of 2006.

To bridge the racial gap, Wilson sent teams into Black Belt communities to get a dialogue going between blacks and whites and to set up bi-racial groups to come up with ideas about moving forward.

In Uniontown, for example, he helped establish some 20 residents who created a group called Uniontown Cares.

These are tiny but, to Wilson, essential steps in reviving the area. Without dedicated and quality leaders, he believes the place will never come around.

Leadership development among politicians is also sorely needed, he argues.

“We have too many politicians in the Black Belt who want to run for office to represent the interests of blacks or whites,” he said, “and not nearly enough who want to run on the promise of solving the problems of the region.”

And the people, Wilson says, feel the same way. He cites a study done at Auburn University Montgomery that found residents of the Black Belt were primarily concerned about the lack of leadership in their region.

“What this shows me,” he said, “is that people in the Black Belt aren't stupid, they know the difference between good and bad leadership. The problem is they don't have much to choose from.

“We have to elevate the level of discourse between the political leaders and the leaders in the communities,” he said. “We have to be creative; we have to think way out ahead.”

In Wilson's mind, the catfish farms that have come to dot the landscape of the western Black Belt are no more the way forward for the region than pinning the future on cotton.

“Catfish farming is never going to change the Black Belt for the better,” he said.

To try to move things forward, several years ago Wilson started a campaign to establish an entity similar to the Foundation for the Mid-South, which services parts of Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas. That organization has a $25 million revolving fund and has an emphasis on building social, economic and racial equity.

After working with local leaders and gaining support from the Ford Foundation, DuPont, the Babcock Foundation and similar groups, Wilson and Carol Zippert, a newspaper publisher from nearby Eutaw in Greene County, were able to get the Black Belt Community Foundation started in 2003.

It is much smaller than Mid-South, but has the promise, Wilson insists, of making a real difference in Alabama's Black Belt within the next five years.

The community foundation is primarily a grant maker, supporting everything from child-care centers to arts projects. Recently it awarded $62,000 to 34 different groups. So far the foundation has given out a total of $290,000 in individual grants ranging from $500 to 4,000.

“We only have an endowment at this point of about $200,000,” said Felecia Jones, director of the foundation. “But it is a start and we are making a difference.”

It is a refreshing change, as Jones sees it.

“The Black Belt, she says, has been studied more times than I can count, but rarely have those studies ever had any follow-through.

“We wanted to do more than just talk; we wanted to bring about change and bring it about quickly,” she said from the foundation's headquarters on a backstreet in Selma.

Jones talks about academic programs for children and parenting programs for adults in a practically inaccessible area near Sawyerville in Hale County, of a health care program in Dallas County and support for a budding women's entrepreneurial group in Perry County.

But to Jones, the grants to these programs aren't just helping to underpin a frayed social safety net or to establish the beginnings of a more vibrant business community; her foundation is helping to bring about a population that is more aware of its power in society.

“We need a better political leadership in the Black Belt, and we need a population that is more engaged in the political process and more aware of the power they have,” she said.

“Here's the attitude around here: When we elect people to political positions, a lot of politicians feel like they don't owe the people anything, and the people feel they owe the politicians something,” she said. “Now that really disturbs me. If people could understand that politicians work for us and start demanding they work for us, then that would change everything.”

Part 3: Road to somewhere examines the Black Belt's infrastructure — real and required — and its effect on the area's ability to grow. John Fleming's work in the Black Belt in 2006 was made possible by funding from the Alicia Patterson Foundation.