A high school public health care boarding school is planned in Alabama; part of its mission is to serve rural counties

Alabama will launch a high school focused on health
care. (Adobe Stock photo)

Amid national health care provider shortages, Alabama is investing in a high school public health care boarding school "to address [the state's] health care staffing crisis, particularly in rural parts of the state, by training students for roles across the medical field," reports Alander Rocha of the Alabama Reflector. The board "overseeing the creation laid the groundwork to select a leader and prepare a curriculum."

With planning under way, the school "is scheduled to enroll its inaugural ninth-grade class in 2026," Rocha writes. "Rob Pearson, interim president of the Alabama School of Healthcare Sciences Foundation, said that the school will offer 'certification levels beyond what’s currently available in Alabama high schools for those looking to become health care professionals.'"

Health disparities between the state's rural and urban populations, which are particularly dire along the Black Belt, motivated health care leaders and stakeholders to work creatively to increase health care access in rural areas. Rocha reports, "The Black Belt experiences some of the state’s worst health outcomes, and Alabama already ranks among the lowest nationally. Life expectancy in every Black Belt county is below the state average of nearly 75 years."

Demopolis is in Marengo
County, Ala. (Wikipedia)

True to its rural service mission, the new Alabama School of Healthcare Sciences will be built in Demopolis, a small town with roughly 7,000 residents in west-central Alabama. State Superintendent Eric Mackey "said the school’s recruitment strategy will focus on drawing students from across the state to build a workforce pipeline beyond those wanting to attend medical school, like nursing," Rocha reports. The school "will join a network of specialized boarding schools, including the Alabama School of Cyber Technology and Engineering."

Through their initiative to establish high schools focused on health care, Bloomberg Philanthropies "is providing $26 million of the estimated $80 million needed," Rocha adds. "A groundbreaking expected by mid-2025. . . . The school is the only rural residential school funded by Bloomberg."

Opinion: To become Mississippi's next governor, Brandon Presley must bridge the rural-urban divide

Presley grew up down the road from Elvis's
Tupelo home. (Brandon Presley photo)

Mississippi gubernatorial nominee Brandon Presley is looking to be the state's first Democratic governor in nearly 20 years, but to do so he'll have to win over rural voters. In his playbook, he's got an "unassailable working-class background and strong stances on popular issues," writes Jeffery H. Bloodworth in his opinion for The Daily Yonder. Plus, he's Elvis Presley's second cousin, which can't hurt. Still, the 46-year-old hopeful faces an uphill climb that begins and ends with bridging the rural-urban divide.

Winning over rural voters is key to Presley's success, but getting enough Mississippi voters to believe that today's Democrat could be a rural advocate while swaying the white-Republican vote may require herculean efforts. Currently, the state is a Republican stronghold. And the "race will be decided by rural voters, a Republican-leaning demographic. Sixty-five of Mississippi's 82 counties are designated as rural (using the nonmetropolitan definition), and more than half of the state population, 54%, qualify as the same." 

Presley is challenging GOP incumbent Tate Reeves, whose run as governor has been rocky. "Gov. Tate Reeves has faced a litany of unprecedented problems in his first term as Mississippi governor: a bitter fight for power with legislative leaders, turmoil and scandal within multiple state agencies, consistent staff turnover, costly natural disasters, and a life-disrupting pandemic," reports Adam Ganucheau of Mississippi Today, a nonprofit Mississippi news service. Bloodworth adds, "Presley’s prospects go beyond an unpopular incumbent. Every observer of any political stripe agrees that he is a one-of-a-kind political talent. Brannon Miller, a longtime state political hand, calls him Mississippi’s 'best retail politician.”

Presley is also equipped with a biography straight from a Hollywood script. Second cousins with Elvis, "Presley was born dirt poor," Bloodworth writes. ". . .  .At age 8, his alcoholic father was murdered. Thereafter, his single mom struggled to provide for him and his two siblings, Greta and Greg. The family regularly lived without electricity, running water, or a phone."

Despite Reeves' outsized problems and unpopularity, as a Republican, he's been able to hold onto many white voters. "From the 1960s through the late 1990s, Mississippi Democrats maintained control through a tenuous bi-racial coalition," Bloodworth explains. "This coalition fell apart in the early 2000s. Today, 90% of white Mississippians vote Republican. Black Mississippians vote Democratic at the same rate. To win, Presley must win a quarter of the white vote, which is overwhelmingly rural, and elicit a strong black turnout."

Groups seeking more democracy and better service for the poor from rural electric co-ops in the Southeast rate them

EnergyDemocracy map, adapted by The Rural Blog

Alabama's rural electric cooperatives did the worst on a scorecard issued this week by citizens' groups in the region that want the member-owned utilities to be more democratic and give more help to members who are poor or want the co-ops to become more environmentally conscious.

The groups hope the year-long study, funded largely by the groups themselves, becomes a model for other regions, said Rory McIlmoil of Appalachian Voices, a leading group in the coalition. Similar efforts have been made in Minnesota and Montana, he said.

Many Southeast cooperatives don't make their bylaws publicly available or allow members to attend or speak at meetings of their boards of directors, who are elected by the co-ops' member-owners. "There's a lack of transparent and independent governance," Karan Pol of the Partnership for Southern Equity, a Georgia-based group, said in the webinar announcing the results.

Graphic from Appalachian Voices and EnergyDemocracy; to enlarge, click on it.

A third of the cooperatives in Alabama don't make their bylaws publicly available, and the state's co-ops have the highest fixed fees, which burden the poor, said Jackson Tolbert of Energy Alabama.

Catherine Robinson of One Voice Mississippi, the state that ranked second lowest, said many co-ops don’t follow the recommendations of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association for fair and democratic elections.

Kathy Curtis of Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, a cooperative member-owner, said she was unaware that member-owners have a voice in the co-op until she became involved in the project.

The groups based their ratings of individual cooperatives on information gathered from co-op websites, bylaws, conversations with co-op staff and the co-ops' tax returns, which are public because they are nonprofits. Some did not cooperate with the survey, and a lack of information gave them a score of zero, but the groups are still accepting information and will revise the published results accordingly, McIlmoil said.

The groups noted some bright spots, such as Powell Valley Electric Cooperative in northeast Tennessee and southwest Virginia, which made "significant reforms" after member-owners organized, said Bri Knisley, Tennessee manager for Appalachian Voices. She said they have "full engagement," with public-comment periods at meetings that have publicly posted agendas.

National Rural Electric Cooperative Association map; click to enlarge

Reader's query answered: Big spending bill, infrastructure package have money for rural septic systems and wells

A recent post here on rural sewage problems in the Black Belt of Alabama prompted Rural Blog reader Alan DiCara ask us what federal funding is available (including in the recent omnibus spending bill) for homeowners to upgrade outdated water wells and/or septic systems. "Life is hard enough paying income taxes, state and federal, to subsidize local water and sewer systems and getting nothing for our own septic and well water systems for costs and regulations imposed by federal and state and local governments," DiCara wrote. We checked and here's what we found:

The omnibus spending bill has several earmarks for septic systems in Alabama, Kentucky, West Virginia, Michigan, New Hampshire, Maine and Washington, requested by House and Senate members from those states, according to Danielle Smoot, spokeswoman for Rep. Hal Rogers of Kentucky's 5th District. He is expanding his PRIDE (Personal Responsibility in a Desirable Environment) program through the Environmental Protection Agency's State and Tribal Assistance Grant Program to make private septic projects eligible. The earmark will give Eastern Kentucky PRIDE $800,000 to implement a grant program to provide septic systems to households in southeastern Kentucky.

UPDATE, March 27: Rogers told Bill Bryant of Lexington's WKYT-TV that the PRIDE program has funded 7,400 septic systems in Eastern Kentucky.

Other legislators who got STAG grants for septic projects included:

• Rep. Terri Sewell (D-Ala.), $700,000 for septic tank installations in Lowndes County, in the Black Belt.
• Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.), $2.5 million for a sewer conversion project in Quail Valley.
• Rep. William Steube (R-Fla.), $3.2 million for a septic-to-sewer conversion project in Charlotte County.
• Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), $550,000 for a septic tank effluent pump system for the City of Presque Isle.
• Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.), $185,000 for a septic system project in Clinton.
• Rep. Jack Bergman (R) and Sens. Gary Peters and Sen, Debbie Stabenow (D) of Michigan, $3.5 million for a septic-to-sewer expansion and modernization project for Tuscarora Township.
• Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) for $900,000 for a septic receiving facility upgrade for Rochester.
• Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) for $800,000 for a septic elimination program in the Clark Regional Wastewater District.

Earmarks have returned after 12 years, but must follow new guidelines aimed at preventing abuse.

The $1.2 trillion infrastructure package contains $55 billion for upgrading water infrastructure overall. Out of that, $15 billion of that goes to lead-pipe replacement, $10 billion goes to cleaning up toxic per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (also called "forever chemicals" for their long-lasting nastiness), and $8.3 billion goes to western water infrastructure. Additionally, "decentralized households" are granted $150 million over five years to help low-income homeowners construct or repair failing septic systems.

The Agriculture Department's Rural Development has a host of water and waste infrastructure programs, funded in the omnibus bill at $653.3 million. Generally, only state or local governments, non-profit organizations, and federally recognized tribes can apply for these grants and loans. Some of those governments may solicit bids from individuals at the local or regional level, but that's not reflected on the main page. One exception is the Individual Water & Wastewater Grants program, but the only eligible households are those in areas recognized as a Colonia before 1989. Those are only located in Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas.

USDA and EPA officials tour Black Belt county to see chronic sewage problems, a disproportionately rural issue

Department of Agriculture Undersecretary for Rural Development Xochitl Torres Small, EPA Administrator Michael Regan and activist Catherine Coleman Flowers toured a mobile home park in Lowndes County, Alabama, with standing pools of raw sewage in the yards. (AL.com photo by Dennis Pillion)

"On the eve of the Selma Jubilee, commemorating the 'Bloody Sunday' march that helped catalyze support for the Voting Rights Act 57 years ago, the head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency toured Alabama’s Black Belt to witness a different kind of struggle: the battle for clean water and basic sanitation," Dennis Pillion reports for AL.com. EPA Administrator Michael Regan, Agriculture Undersecretary for Rural Development Xochitl Torres Small and other EPA and USDA officials "went to three different properties in Lowndes County Saturday, seeing homes where malfunctioning septic systems discharged untreated sewage into backyards and in between mobile homes, and where some residents had nowhere to go to address their sewage issues."

The group was led by author and activist Catherine Coleman Flowers, the founder of the Center for Rural Enterprise and Environmental Justice, who won a MacArthur Foundation "Genius Grant" in 2020 for bringing attention to the issue in her native county and other rural areas, Pillion reports.

More than 2 million Americans lack access to clean water, according to a 2019 report by clean-water advocacy non-profits DigDeep and the U.S. Water Alliance. It's a problem that disproportionately affects rural residents and those in substandard housing. Because rural Black, Latino and Native American residents are more likely to live in substandard housing, they're more likely to be affected.

A key to the problem is that rural populations are often too spread out to make traditional utility lines cost-effective, and sewers are the most expensive basic utility. Cash-strapped local or tribal governments are increasingly on the hook to pay for water system improvements, according to the DigDeep report. The 2021 infrastructure package earmarked $29.3 billion in grants over five years for counties to upgrade their water systems. But rural counties may miss out on much of that money, since they often lack the manpower and know-how to compete for or spend such grants.

Regan said the situation was "unacceptable" and clean water and safe sewage systems were a "basic right" that every American deserves, Pillion reports. Regan continued: "Straight piping into lagoons, failing septic systems, waste and raw sewage backing up into yards into homes, seeing children have to walk around delicately so that they don’t sink or get bogged down into their own front yards. This is not the America that we all know it should be."

Gaps in weather radar coverage leave Delta and Black Belt more vulnerable, but it's not necessarily driven by race

Chart by meteorology student Jack Sillin shows radar coverage and black population. Click on the image to enlarge it.

Severe storms and tornadoes in the Southeast left at least five people dead yesterday, some rural, Jan Wesner Childs reports for The Weather Channel. That makes all the more relevant a recent storm of another kind on Twitter about rural—and racial—disparities in weather warning systems. 

Cornell University meteorology student Jack Sillin, who grew up in the rural South, kicked off a debate March 19 after tweeting that the National Weather Service's radar network leaves many rural Black communities uncovered, and thus less likely to get advance warning of tornadoes and severe storms. "Overlaying demographic data with radar coverage data, it's hard not to notice how the areas most underserved by NEXRAD are also majority Black," Sillin tweeted.

Marshall Shepherd, a meteorology professor at the University of Georgia and former president of the American Meteorological Society, writes for Forbes that Sillin's observation is fair and revealed "a convergence of science, geography and history that is worth a discussion." Rurality is the main factor in coverage gaps, and "in the South, this will bring a large Black population into play. In the West, it is likely to disproportionately impact Hispanic or Native American populations. Of course, these gaps will affect White populations in these regions too. It is important to shatter the narrative that highlighting one group’s challenge minimizes another group."

Sillin replied to Shepherd in an email that however the disparitiescame about, "The gaps are still frustrating, impactful, and consistent with a long legacy of underinvestment in these communities."

Study says covid-19 death rates are higher in rural counties with larger shares of Black and Hispanic residents

"A new study in the Journal of Rural Health calls on state and county health departments to release more race-specific information on covid-19 cases to create a fuller picture of the pandemic's impact on people of color in rural areas," April Simpson reports for Stateline. "The study, published Sept. 7, finds that rural covid-19 mortality rates are highest in counties with the largest percentages of Black and Hispanic people. Researchers . . . did not calculate race-specific mortality rates."

Rural Black and Hispanic populations are particularly high in the South and Southwest, areas that have been hard-hit by the pandemic, Simpson reports. These populations are more likely to die from the virus because they're also more likely to have underlying health conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure; more likely to work blue-collar jobs that make social distancing difficult; and less likely to have access to health care. Among Hispanic residents, the fear of deportation may keep them from seeking medical care.

"The study calls for increasing free covid-19 testing in rural areas with vulnerable populations and partnerships between local governments and community-based organizations to educate, test and trace," Simpson reports.

Residents in town of 300, without public water for over a year, getting it after investigative reporter sounds alarm

Wikipedia map

Pushed by investigative journalism, officials installed a new well system after a reporter revealed that residents in a small Mississippi town had gone for more than a year without a public water supply.

Residents on the outskirts of Schlater, a majority-Black town of about 300, had been without clean, running water since July 2019 because of broken well pumps, forcing them to travel nearly 13 miles to get water several times a week, Aallyah Wright reports for Mississippi Today, a nonprofit news outlet.

After Wright's initial story in December about the problem, Brandon Presley, Northern District commissioner on the state's elected Public Service Commission, "conducted follow-up discussions with federal and local water agencies and local lawmakers to see what could be done to assist the families and established a two-phase plan," Wright reports.

"In May, the Mississippi Department of Human Services announced the receipt of a $63,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to build a new well," Wright reports. It took more legal wrangling, but last week Schlater residents finally celebrated a groundbreaking ceremony for the new system, which should be complete in two to three months.

At the groundbreaking, Presley celebrated the success story, but voiced worry that other small towns are "falling through the cracks" because they aren't getting the same kind of attention, Wright reports.

"There’s too many areas in Mississippi like where we are today that are forgotten places and that’s just a fact," said Presley, a Democrat who was mayor of Nettleton, a town of 2,000. "Too many people in state government forget that areas like Schlater in our small, rural communities exist."

Quick hits: How pandemic is creating a rural employment crisis; Irish support hard-hit Native American communities

Here's a roundup of stories with rural resonance; if you do or see similar work that should be shared on The Rural Blog, email us at heather.chapman@uky.edu.

Rural California county defies shelter in place order. Read more here.

Military correspondent says citizen unrest over shut-downs makes him more afraid than he ever was in Afghanistan or Iraq. Read more here.

Pandemic sharpens focus on rural digital divide, columnist writes. Read more here.

Three reasons the pandemic is creating a rural employment crisis. Read more here.

Irish dig deep to help pandemic-stricken Navajo, repaying a debt that stretches back to the Great Potato Famine. Read more here.

Rural Black Belt southerners take on the coronavirus. Read more here.

Pandemic could change how low-income parents are treated. Read more here.

In fracking's new reality, only the strongest will survive. Read more here.

Poverty journalist says rural Black Belt deserves more federal funding and attention, like Appalachia has received

A map showing deeply disadvantaged counties in the South (left) compared to an 1860 Census map showing slavery distribution across the Deep South. (Modern map by University of Michigan)

Appalachia has been the de facto face of rural poverty since President Johnson went to Eastern Kentucky in 1964 to promote his War on Poverty. That visit presaged action; the Appalachian Regional Commission was created the next year to promote economic development.

Since then, the ARC has received $38 billion in federal funding (adjusted for inflation) and has helped reduce disparities in 13 states. But the Black Belt has a great deal of rural poverty as well, much of it among people of color, and it isn't receiving the attention and funding it deserves, Greg Kaufmann writes for The Nation magazine.

Greg Kaufmann

The Black Belt was originally named for a swath of rich, dark soil crossing the Deep South, but came to refer to the high African American population, since many slave-based plantations were located on that soil. Broadly defined, the Black Belt has about 300 rural counties with populations between 30 and 80 percent African American. As of 2008, 83% of rural African Americans lived in the Black Belt. "The black rural South’s current unemployment rate of approximately 14 percent and child poverty rate of 51 percent are double those found in rural counties included in the ARC, according to a forthcoming paper from the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies," Kaufmann reports.

Though "piecemeal legislative efforts" have been made to boost investment in the Black Belt, "none include all 11 states, focus exclusively on Black Belt counties, or—critically—prioritize community participation in designing and leading a commission to address the Black Belt’s unique challenges," Kaufmann writes. "We’re just two weeks away from the South Carolina Democratic primary, on February 29; six more Black Belt states will vote on March 3. It’s time for a presidential candidate to not only engage with the needs of people living in this region but also begin to rectify a history of exploitation and neglect."

Kaufmann is a contributing writer to The Nation and the journalist-in-residence at the Roosevelt Institute; his work focuses on poverty.

Rural Alabama editor who called on KKK to ride is finally out

Goodloe Sutton
(Montgomery Advertiser photo)

A rural Alabama newspaper publisher is out for good, months after an editorial calling for the Ku Klux Klan to "night ride again" against "Democrats in the Republican Party and Democrats [who] are plotting to raise taxes in Alabama," Jay Reeves reports for The Associated Press.

Goodloe Sutton, 80, was widely criticized after the Feb. 14 editorial in The Democrat-Reporter in Linden, which he has owned for decades. After mounting public anger, in late February he handed the reins over to Elicia Dexter, who had worked as the weekly's front office clerk for six weeks. But Dexter quit in mid-March. Sutton, who still owned the paper, was still trying to control some of the content, she said.

Later in March, Sutton announced he had sold the paper to a Chicago couple. But the Alabama Political Reporter discovered that the buyers were connected to the KKK, and the sale fell through.

Now, the sale is for real, according to new owner and operator Tommy Wells. Sutton "doesn't even have a key anymore," Wells told Reeves. Wells, lately a sports publicist at a Texas college, has about three decades of experience in the newspaper business. He said he had approached Sutton several years ago about buying the paper after he heard Sutton planned to close it, Reeves reports.

Black editor, who replaced Alabama publisher who called for KKK to night-ride, steps down after he asserts control

Elecia R. Dexter (Democrat-
Reporter photo via N.Y. Times)

After rural Alabama publisher Goodloe Sutton was widely criticized last month for an editorial calling for the Ku Klux Klan to "night ride again" against Democrats who want to raise taxes, he said he was handing over control to a black woman who had recently been hired as the paper's front office clerk. "The new editor and publisher, Elecia R. Dexter, said she wanted to make the newspaper, The Democrat-Reporter, more reflective of the community it serves in Linden, a small town in western Alabama that is about 59 percent white and 41 percent black," Sarah Mervosh reports for The New York Times. "But now, after only a few weeks, Ms. Dexter has stepped down."

Red marks Linden, in Marengo County
(Wikipedia map)

After supposedly giving Dexter the reins, Sutton continued to assert partial control over the content of the paper, which he still owned. He emailed to local news outlets and advertisers an altered version of the Feb. 28 edition that replaced an article about his retirement with one that defended his editorial and criticized The Montgomery Advertiser for its coverage, Mervosh reports. He also interfered with the March 14 paper, which Dexter said obliged her to put out a press release saying that the edition didn't reflect her "views or thoughts."

Dexter's departure "complicates the future of the weekly newspaper, which was once hailed for its journalism, and reflects the thorny reality that healing from racially hurtful acts is rarely a once-and-done process," Mervosh reports. Dexter told her, "You can be mad at him, but we can’t keep making this about him . . . People like him will exist. That’s just the reality of life. The point is not to give those people all the energy."

Rural, poor, black students not prepared for four-year colleges, indicates study of one Ga. school

Best Places map

Today on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," U.S. Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, a civil-rights leader since the early 1960s, was asked to name the next big civil-rights issue. He said it was seeing that all children in America get a good education. The need for that is illustrated in Carrollton, Ga., a few miles west of his Atlanta district.

A study built on interviews with 26 students and 11 staff members at Central High School in Carrollton found that rural and impoverished African Americans have limited opportunities and resources to prepare them to attend four-year institutions. The study was published in The Review of Higher Education. The study was a collaboration of researchers from the University of Georgia, North Carolina State University and RTI International, a non-profit research and technical company in Durham, N.C.

During the 2012-13 school year, 80 percent of Central students were African American and the school had a 79 percent graduation rate—84 percent for African Americans, says the study. Also, 82 percent of students received free or reduced lunches and the county had a median family income of $34,000, with 25 percent of the population living below the poverty level, and only 20 percent of adults had a college degree.

Study participants expressed concern about going to a four-year school because many had never been far from home before, they were worried about how they would pay for college and who would look after impoverished relatives. Those who visited universities said they saw a lack of African Americans on campus.

Students also showed a lack of knowledge about the costs of college (one thought it costs $40,000-$60,000 a year) and had little understanding about the workings of grants, scholarships and other financial aid. They also voiced concern about academic preparedness, with Central not offering advanced-placement classes.

"The rural environment shaped students’ perspectives on career and higher education opportunities available to them," researchers wrote. "Regardless of the student participants’ career aspirations, they believed there were limited opportunities available in their community to pursue their aspirations. These perceptions of limited opportunities were embedded in the economic characteristics of the county where Central High School is located. Many students perceived the fast food industry and retail industry (small-box and large-box retail stores) to be the dominant industries in their community, which shaped students’ career knowledge of opportunities available in the community."

Poor Black Belt residents fighting coal-ash landfill are hit with $30 million defamation suit from it

Owners of a coal-ash landfill in a poverty-stricken African American community in rural Alabama filed a $30 million lawsuit against residents who have fought the landfill, saying posts on a Facebook page have ruined the company's reputation, Kendra Pierre-Louis reports for InsideClimate News. The lawsuit, filed by the Arrowhead Landfill, Green Group Holdings and the wholly owned subsidiary Howling Coyote LLC, accuses Black Belt Citizens for Health and Justice of defamation.

Residents of Uniontown (Best Places map), which is 90 percent black and has a median household income of $14,000, unsuccessfully fought the license for Arrowhead. "When the landfill started to accept coal ash, their previous complaints about the foul air now focused on the health risks," Pierre-Louis writes. "Residents say a litany of problems—asthma, headaches, rashes, neuropathy, even the death of pets—cropped up. They filed several lawsuits, a civil-rights complaint and took to Facebook to make those grievances public."

InsideClimate News graphic

The lawsuit is being referred to as a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP) suit, seen as a move "to burden defendants with legal costs as a way of silencing dissent," Pierre-Louis writes. "Twenty-eight states have enacted protections against SLAPP suits, on the grounds that they infringe on First Amendment rights. Alabama is not one of them. Georgia, where the plaintiffs are headquartered, is."

Lee Rowland, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union who is representing the Uniontown defendants, told Pierre-Louis, "The effect of the filing is obviously intimidating. When an average citizen, let alone those who live in a town where the per-capita income is under $10,000 receive notice that they've been sued in court for $30 million ... it's hard to overstate the terror that you would feel just for speaking about your community from the heart." (Read more)

Senate sends House bill to give black farmers $1.15 billion, Native Americans $3.4 billion

"The U.S. Senate gave its approval today to major settlements involving American Indians and black farmers," David Ingram reports for the National Law Journal. "Senators approved the legislation without a formal vote, sending it to the House of Representatives for a potentially final vote." UPDATE, Nov. 30: The House sent the bill to President Obama on a 256-152 vote. "Sixteen Republicans joined 240 Democrats in support of the measure, while three Democrats and 149 Republicans voted against it," reports Patrick Reis of Environment and Energy News (subscription required).

The bill "appropriates $1.15 billion for a settlement with black farmers, including named plaintiff Timothy Pigford, who were denied the full benefits" of federal farm programs, Ingram writes. The money would come from "a surplus in a fund for nutrition programs and by extending customs user fees." UPDATE, Nov. 25: Some House Republicans, alleging fraud, vow to fight the payments.

The Native Americans' suit faulted accounting of royalties for mining and drilling on tribal lands. "Debate over the settlements had drawn out for months over how to pay for them and over how much of the $3.4 billion settlements should go to the plaintiffs’ lawyers," Ingram reports. The legislation would leave the fees up to the judge in the case. (Read more)

Appalachia, Black Belt highest in diabetes, obesity; CDC has first national, county-by-county maps

Obesity and diabetes are growing across the country, but in the first county-by-county national breakdown, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reveals the rates are highest in heavily white Appalachia and the Black Belt and other heavily African-American areas of the Southeast. Edward Gregg, chief of epidemiology and statistics in CDC's division of diabetes translation and the study's lead author, described obesity and diabetes as "basically the two conditions of greatest concern for U.S. adults right now."

The two conditions are related; diabetes is one complication of obesity. In Appalachia, 81 percent of counties have high rates of diabetes and obesity, and the study shows three-quarters of counties in the Southeast have similar rates, with the highest concentrated in counties with high percentages of African Americans. ("Black Belt" was originally a geologic term for a soil section of Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia, but now also describes the crescent of majority African Amercian counties that reaches as far as Virginia.) Some counties with Indian reservations also have high rates.

"We think these increases in obesity and diabetes partially reflect the cultural shifts that are affecting all of us," Gregg told HealthDay News, "but we see them most in regions where there is more poverty and where educational levels are lower." (Read more) CDC produced county-by-county breakdowns of both diabetes and obesity levels in each state, and national maps of diabetes and obesity rates. Here's the national diabetes map:

Ala. studying good rural schools to see what works

Rural schools in Alabama generally score lower on achievement tests, and are more likely to have dropouts, but a few, such as J.S. Ervin Elementary, where Jakiyah Bridges studies (photo by Micky Welsh), do much better. School officials are taking a close look at those schools to see if their sucess can be replicated elsewhere, with the help of the Center for Rural Alabama, an agency in the state Department of Agriculture.

"Rural Alabama is headed down a long, desolate road when it comes to turning out a well-trained work force," Agriculture Commissioner Ron Sparks said when he announced the study. "We knew that there were some schools doing a tremendous job under difficult circumstances, so we wanted to find them -- and learn from them."

Ervin Elementary boosted its reading scores above the statewide average with "reading tutors, dedicated teachers, structure, new programs -- and enough money to make more of a difference," reports Kym Klass of the Montgomery Advertiser. "Ervin has its challenges. For example, it can't afford more teachers so it relies heavily on parents to monitor and help with their children's education." (Read more)

Will black nominee boost low rural black turnout?

With only three weeks to go until Election Day, we are getting perhaps the last big round of analysis of the voting patterns of two key demographics -- rural voters and African-American voters. Joseph Williams of the Boston Globe combines the two to look at rural African Americans, and says that voter turnout for this demographic is difficult to predict.

This uncertainty is even more pronounced in the South, where the percentage of rural blacks turning out to vote is significantly lower than among their counterparts in metropolitan areas. "People in the Southern countryside tend to have lower incomes and poorer educations, but the difference is especially pronounced when race is considered," Williams writes.

Lonnie Mosley, an African-American factory worker from South Boston, Va. (pop. 8,500), says disillusionment with politics has kept him from voting for the past 11 years. The 2000 presidential election, which centered around disenfranchised black voters in Florida, proves that whites "run the system," Mosley says. "They've got so much power over the black community. They have the upper hand."

But others see this election as a chance to change the political scene. "I talk to people coming out of the barber shop. I talk a lot about Obama. I talk positive," said Wayne Ferguson, the owner of a predominantly black barbershop in South Boston. "We have a chance to make history. We have a chance to make a difference. You never know until you try, and every vote counts. More so now than ever." (Read more; hat tip to the Daily Yonder)

Economic woes, out-migration of young people shrink rural communities in the Black Belt

A decline in family farms, a lack of jobs and depleted economic opportunities are causing heavy populations losses in the rural South, Larry Copeland reported for USA Today.

"The USA's population history is most often a story of growth -- of people moving to ever-growing metropolises and the challenges of accommodating them," Copeland writes from Sumpter County, Ala. "But vast sections of the nation are seeing heavy, sustained population losses, a reflection of the decline of family farming and the lack of rural jobs and economic opportunities. Some of the most drastic population decreases in the 20th Century occurred in a wide swath of rural counties in the Great Plains, from the Canadian border to Texas. Sumpter and most of the Southeast's other shrinking counties are in the so-called Black Belt, where vestiges of the Old South--de facto school segregation, poor race relations and entrenched poverty--are most prevalent. Rural towns in the Carolinas and Georgia, and especially in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkansas, are hollowing out."

The Black Belt, named for its rich and dark topsoil that attracted plantation owners to a swath of land running from Mississippi to Georgia. Today, it can refer more broadly to a rough crescent of hundreds of counties with significant African-American population from Virginia to Texas. It is sometimes defined even more broadly, to include northern Florida and the Mississipi Delta as far north as the southern tip of Illinois. It is sometimes defined economically, as in this map from the University of Georgia's Initiative on Poverty and the Economy. For its other maps, click here.

TheBlack Belt's population loss and that of the Great Plains stems largely from out-migration of young people. Land-grant universities in Black Belt states are seeking solutions to the region's problems. They and some congressional representatives and community leaders want a federal Black Belt Commission, similar to the Appalachian Regional Commission. "There's a growing understanding that it takes more than civil rights laws to make the needed changes," says Terrance Winemiller, an associate professor of anthropology and geography at Auburn University-Montgomery and lecturer on the Black Belt. "It takes preparation and a regional involvement. In fact, I would say even a national involvement." Read Copeland's full story here.

Women's life expectancy drops in 180 U.S. counties, mostly in the Deep South and Appalachia

Do disparities of income and health-care access affect life expectancy? Perhaps. A new study has found that while the overall life expectancy for American men and women rose between 1961 and 1999, the life expectancy of women has declined significantly in recent years in 180 U.S. counties, mostly rural ones in Appalachia and the deep South, reports The Associated Press.

In those counties, women's life expectancy fell by an average of 1.3 years between 1983 and 1999, according to a team of researchers at Harvard University, the University of California, San Francisco, and the University of Washington. Meanwhile, men's life expectancy fell by 1.3 years in only 11 counties nationwide.

"Researchers blamed the decrease in women's life expectancy on high blood pressure as well as chronic diseases related to smoking and obesity, such as lung cancer and diabetes," AP reports. (In the researchers' maps below, the red counties experienced significant declines, while orange ones had less significant declines, of 0.5 years or less, and those in green had increases, more significant in dark green counties.)
The study, based on data from the National Center for Health Statistics and the U.S. Census Bureau, found that nationwide between 1961 and 1999 the life expectancy for men increased from 66.9 years to 74.1 years, while women's life expectancy rose from from 73.5 years to 79.6 years. In the 180 counties that saw declines in women's life expectancy, the average was 75.5 years. "The study emphasizes how important it is to monitor health inequalities between different groups," the researchers wrote, "in order to ensure that everyone - and not just the well-off - can experience gains in life expectancy." (Read more)

The study was published this week in the online journal PLoS Medicine. To read the full study go here.

UPDATE, April 29: The Daily Yonder posts better maps and lists of the counties with significantly lower life expectancy and reports that the rural county with the greatest decline in life expectancy, for both men and women, was McNairy County, Tenn. To read the details, click here.