Last updated: September 30, 2024
Place
Alabama Black Belt National Heritage Area
Jacqueline Nix
Quick Facts
Location:
Black Belt region of Alabama
Significance:
The Alabama Black Belt National Heritage Area tells the story of the American South, from the meeting of Mississippian chief, Tuscaloosa, and Spanish colonist, Hernando de Soto, to the brutality of slavery in the Antebellum South and birth of the Confederacy, to some of the most crucial events in the Civil Rights Movement.
Designation:
National Heritage Area
Congress designated the Alabama Black Belt National Heritage Area (ABBNHA) in 2023. ABBNHA promotes a sustainable future for the Black Belt region through the preservation, interpretation, and marketing of unique cultural, historical, and natural assets. It aims to create a better quality of life for its residents through education and development of community capacity and pride.
“Black Belt” is a colloquial term referencing both the slash of dark fertile soil across Alabama’s midsection and the high numbers of historically enslaved Africans and African Americans living in the area. ABBNHA honors the region's history by discussing how natural abundance made the area an influential indigenous cultural center and later a center of slavery and the cotton industry in the U.S. ABBNHA tracks its community’s history through the Jim Crow era of government-sanctioned racial oppression and segregation and the American Civil Rights Movement that followed, offering empowerment and hope in the struggle for equality. Through generations of systemic inequality and discrimination, artistic expression in the Black Belt —through music, stories, art, folk crafts, and architecture—displayed the breadth and depth of human experience in this region.
Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail
Freedom Riders National Monument
The Legacy Sites
National Voting Rights Museum and Institute
Alabama Black Belt Adventures
Moundville Archeological Park
Rosa Parks
Booker T. Washington
George Washington Carver
Freedom Riders
Tuscaloosa
Hernando de Soto
“Black Belt” is a colloquial term referencing both the slash of dark fertile soil across Alabama’s midsection and the high numbers of historically enslaved Africans and African Americans living in the area. ABBNHA honors the region's history by discussing how natural abundance made the area an influential indigenous cultural center and later a center of slavery and the cotton industry in the U.S. ABBNHA tracks its community’s history through the Jim Crow era of government-sanctioned racial oppression and segregation and the American Civil Rights Movement that followed, offering empowerment and hope in the struggle for equality. Through generations of systemic inequality and discrimination, artistic expression in the Black Belt —through music, stories, art, folk crafts, and architecture—displayed the breadth and depth of human experience in this region.
Historic Sites and Points of Interest:
Tuskegee Institute National Historic SiteSelma to Montgomery National Historic Trail
Freedom Riders National Monument
The Legacy Sites
National Voting Rights Museum and Institute
Alabama Black Belt Adventures
Moundville Archeological Park
Notable People:
Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.Rosa Parks
Booker T. Washington
George Washington Carver
Freedom Riders
Tuscaloosa
Hernando de Soto