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Friday, April 18, 2008

Story from county in Alabama's Black Belt shows effect of high fuel prices on rural commuters

Rural commuters are taking one of the hardest hits from high fuel prices, and the hit is hardest in poor communities such as Wilcox County in Alabama's Black Belt, where residents spend more than 13 percent of their monthly income on motor-vehicle fuels -- the highest ratio in the nation, according to the Oil Price Information Service.

"Cheap gas, and cars to put it in, have long given Americans the freedom to roam. For the people of Coy -- a largely African American community of about 900, two hours southwest of Montgomery -- that freedom has been particularly vital, delivering them out of rural isolation and into decent, if far-flung, employment," Richard Fausset of the Los Angeles Times reports from the town of 900.

"A generation ago, black laborers sharecropped cotton on white-owned land here. Others worked in nearby sawmills. By the 1960s, the mills were thriving, but small-scale farming was fading away, and the civil rights era had opened new job possibilities. Those jobs, however, tended to be spread around the state. The people of Coy gassed up their cars and drove to them." Today, many fill up at a local store started by two men who say they started it as a public service, not to make money. Fausset's description of the business and its clientele make for good reading, despite the sad backdrop.

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