alabama possible from the alabama poverty project

Alabama is Held Back by Unresolved Issues of Poverty, Race and Taxation

By Wayne Flynt

Special to the Mobile Register

June 5, 2005

Imagine 50 smart-looking sailing crafts jockeying for position at the starting line of a high-stakes regatta. Your boat isn’t the fanciest or newest, but it is certainly one of the best.

It was crafted decades ago with careful attention to detail by proud, hardworking people, and is crewed by skillful sailors who share an incredible work ethic.

Your team hoists its sails and prepares to tack into the wind as the cannon sounds to start the race. Then something terrible happens: Most of the other 49 boats sprint away, leaving you in their wake.

Suddenly you realize that you forgot to weigh anchor. While the other boats sail over the horizon, your crew struggles to recover from the drag of the neglected anchor.

This is the meaning of that parable: The 21st century will be a fierce, competitive race with huge consequences, good and bad, for winners and losers. But Alabama doesn’t enter the race on equal terms.

Historic decisions about race, education and tax policy (many of them not very wise) have put the state at a significant disadvantage.

Of Alabama’s many liabilities, none is more significant than its long heritage of poverty. Varying from 14 percent to more than 20 percent, its poverty rate continues to be among the nation’s highest.

Affecting nearly equal numbers of blacks and whites, urban dwellers and rural people, the one aberration in statistics seems to be age.

Alabama’s poorest residents are its youngest and its oldest.

What does it say about the moral values of a society when its poorest, least powerful, most neglected people are its children and senior citizens?

Alabama trails most other Southern states in population growth and per-capita in- come. But inside Alabama, wide discrepancies exist as well.

Nearly one-third of the state’s 67 counties regularly show population declines in the decennial census. These counties stretch from the mainly white Appalachian hill counties through the Black Belt into southwestern Alabama.

These concentrations constitute the anchor that’s holding Alabama behind her sister states.

Of course, not every town or county experiences poverty in the same way. Towns and counties with well-funded public schools in which citizens take pride, with well- educated populations, with highly skilled, well-paying jobs, prosper and grow, while poorly-educated populations with low incomes stagnate.

For instance, in 2004 Shelby County’s rate of poverty – 6.5 percent – ranked that county by far the lowest in Alabama. It was the only county, in fact, with single digit rates of poverty.

By contrast, the wealthiest antebellum Alabama counties, located in the Black Belt, were the poorest at the beginning of the 21st century: Bullock, Dallas, Greene, Lowndes, Macon, Perry, Sumter and Wilcox all had rates above 30 percent.

Race, of course, is as important to Alabama poverty as region. Black Belt counties are not only the poorest in the state, they are also the most heavily African- American.

Blacks constitute some 26 percent of the state’s population, but own less than 7 percent of the state’s businesses. Auburn University Montgomery’s Center for Demographic Research reports that the median income of black households in the state trails whites’ income by a staggering $17,000 annually.

Thirty percent of blacks live in poverty, compared to 10 percent of whites; and

the black infant mortality rate is twice that of whites.

Because whites outnumber blacks nearly three to one, the total number of poor whites in the state is about equal to that of poor blacks. But with Alabama’s black population predicted to increase to a third of the total within the next two decades, the rate of poverty may soar as well.

Whether viewed from the perspective of Judeo-Christian ethics, biblical imperatives (note the admonition contained especially in Matthew 25:31-46), or pragmatic concern for the skill of the state’s labor force and the viability of its economy, poverty in Alabama must be understood, the sources of that poverty addressed, and progress made to curtail, reduce and finally eliminate poverty.

That is the primary task of the Alabama Poverty Project, which seeks to bring together people of faith to end poverty. The state simply will not be able to compete if apathy and neglect continue to characterize the response of most affluent citizens toward the poorest.

Nor can churches, temples, synagogues and mosques make a convincing case for the ethical relevance of religion absent some effective strategy for reducing poverty.

Thankfully, many churches and individuals are engaged in this issue. Sowing Seeds of Hope in Perry County, VOICES for Alabama’s Children, Alabama ARISE, the Alabama Poverty Project and many other groups have entered the race. But much more must be done.

Ready or not, our sail is hoisted into the wind. But is our anchor still in the water?

Wayne Flynt is the Distinguished University Professor of History at Auburn University. His e-mail address is flyntjw@auburn.edu.

CUTLINES: JULIE BENNETT Montgomery Advertiser, AP: Mary Rudolph stands in front of her home in the Collirene community between Montgomery and Selma in this file photo. The house had no indoor plumbing and a lone faucet beside the front porch. An anti-poverty organization is determined to reverse situations such as Rudolph’s by building 25 homes for Lowndes County’s poor.

Affecting nearly equal numbers of blacks and whites, urban dwellers and rural people, the one aberration in statistics seems to be age. Alabama’s poorest residents are its youngest and its oldest.