By STEVEN WHITE
Guest Writer

Vice presidential candidate John Edwards pointed out the importance of not losing sight of rural poverty in a recent interview. And as he aptly noted, “82 percent of the poorest rural counties in America are in the South.”

Discussions of American inequality usually focus on urban poverty, seemingly with the assumption that if we address urban poverty, the problem will be solved. Rural poverty, however, is distinctly different than its urban counterpart, both less understood and in some ways more tragic. I don’t mean that urban poverty isn’t harsh or that it somehow receives too much attention. Rather, rural poverty simply receives far too little. And as Edwards pointed out, to understand rural poverty we must understand the South, a region with its own very distinct characteristics.

Impoverished rural dwellers are often severely isolated. The urban poor can walk or take public transportation to large libraries, community centers, and up-to-date hospitals. The rural poor often must own a car to access even a small, poorly-funded library. Recreational facilities for the young and old alike are far less prevalent. Rural hospitals can be few and far between, and often lack adequate funding. The South, furthermore, is the only region in the country where wealth is actually declining, with the median wealth of southern families dropping by 18.8 percent between 2001 and 2004. It accounts for half of the 10 worst states for foreclosures; bankruptcy rates in the region are among the highest in the nation.

Children, especially, fare much worse in the South than in the rest of the country. The Kids Count Survey, which measures child well-being in the 50 states, gives its worst rankings to the southern ones. Of the 10 worst states, nine are in the South: North Carolina, Kentucky, Alabama, Georgia, Arkansas, Tennessee, South Carolina, Louisiana, and Mississippi. Only Virginia ranks in the top 25.

One notable similarity between urban and rural poverty is the disproportionate number of African Americans who suffer from it. According to researchers at Wake Forest University, some predominantly African American counties in Mississippi not only have infant mortality rates higher than the state average, but they are in fact higher than the average for many third-world countries. And while most of the media’s 2005 hurricane coverage focused on urban New Orleans, the majority of affected residents in Mississippi actually lived in non-metro areas. These residents were 9 percent less likely to have a college degree; they came from families that earn, on average, $10,000 less than their urban counterparts. Minority populations are 7 percent higher in these areas. Forty percent of non-metro African Americans in the area lived in poverty and were generally more likely to live in mobile homes. Seventy of the top 100 counties for Black youth military recruitment are found in the South, where many poor rural youth see no other hope for advancement.

Racism, while a major factor in urban poverty as well, is even more blatant in the South than the rest of the country. The region’s addiction to slavery before the Civil War changed into other ways of maintaining white economic supremacy afterwards: legally with Jim Crow laws, and extra-legally with groups like the Ku Klux Klan, founded in Tennessee.

Nostalgia for past race relations can be found in sometimes surprising ways. Statues commemorating fallen Confederate soldiers are not uncommon. Until 1997, Virginia’s state song was an old minstrel tune narrated from the perspective of a former slave. Referring to himself as an “old darkey,” he expresses improbable longing for his old “massa.” It was reduced to “state song emeritus” after protest. Florida’s state song still has its origin in minstrel shows. Mississippi has the distinction of having the only state flag in the nation to incorporate the Confederate flag in its design. Just recently, 19 southern Republicans in the House of Representatives even voted against renewal of the Voting Rights Act.

How has this racism affected the South economically? In the late 19th century, the white politicians in control of the region were willing to sacrifice education and social welfare to maintain profit and white privileges. Over time, this became embedded in southern law. Politicians did everything in their power to prevent solidarity between poor whites and African Americans and they mostly succeeded, something that carries over into the present.

In 1938, President Roosevelt declared the South to be the nation’s number one economic problem. It still is. Not only southerners, but the country as a whole needs to pay attention, once again, to the specific and distinct forms of inequality found throughout the rural South. Only a nationwide awareness can help genuinely lift up the nation’s poorest region.

Steven White is a native of east Tennessee and a student at Hampshire College in Massachusetts. He wrote an earlier version of this article last summer during an internship with United for a Fair Economy, a Boston-based nationwide non-profit that upholds progressive taxation and seeks to close the race-based wealth divide. For more on UFE, go to faireconomy.org.

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Facing South (www.southernstudies.org/facingsouth) is updated daily with news stories and perspectives on the region, with a focus on poverty and racism.