Alabama’s “black belt”

We left I-59 and drove to Eutaw, Alabama, for lunch.  Unfortunately, the town, which is a county seat, is so poor that it didn’t have a restaurant.  It did have a sign about being the gateway to Alabama’s Black Belt.   I looked it up on Wikipedia and learned that originally the term ‘black belt” referred to the soil that was especially good for growing cotton.  Of course, cotton growing in the South meant slaves, and so the region also contained a large population of African-Americans.  It still does.  If you look at a map of the Biden-Trump vote, you’ll see a belt of blue counties stretching across Alabama about2/3rds of the way down.  I’m sure the Alabama legislature will do its best to cut that vote for 2024.