As the Black Belt rose as an agrarian society with cotton as “king” and corn as “prime minister,” it was a region of large plantations and later, a heavy farm tenancy. The settlers who emigrated to the Black Belt from the older states along the eastern seaboard came to farm the rich soil, and with them, they brought the “peculiar institution” of slavery. Slaves first arrived in what would become the United States in 1619. Virginia planters needed a labor source for growing, harvesting, and curing tobacco. The planters were not equipped to working the land themselves, and at first, they attempted to enslave Native Americans. The Native Americans died as a result of a lack of immunity to certain diseases. As indentured servants began to gain their freedom after working a certain number of years, the planters turned to importing enslaved Africans as a permanent labor source to work their large tracts of land. The system of slavery in the American South was referred to as a “peculiar institution” because it was chattel servitude – the actual ownership of one person by another. Black Belt settler Martha Hatch constantly refers to “my Negroes” making the journey to Alabama with her in her letters home to North Carolina. The Slave Narratives, many of which come from former slaves that worked on Black Belt plantations, offer glimpses of the ‘peculiar institution’ from the viewpoint of the slaves themselves, a viewpoint from the quarters instead of from the Big House. It was during this time of “King Cotton” that public schools were set up throughout the state. Although the children of wealthy planters attended academies or were privately tutored, six out of ten Alabama children were not attending school of any kind in 1850. During the late nineteenth century, many rural communities raised money to support a subscription school and secured a teacher by offering to let her board with nearby families. Because of the enormous amount of wealth in the Black Belt, many of the prestigious schools of Alabama can trace their roots to this region. Because of the slave codes, it was illegal to teach slaves to read and write, although this law was not always enforced. Some slaves learned to read and write in the course of religious training, and others were taught by their young white counterparts. Even with these opportunities for education, the majority of enslaved persons remained illiterate. However, vocational training was highly encouraged, as the more skill a slave had at a certain trade, the more economically valuable that slave was. The plantation system saw the rise of skilled slave trades such as masonry and carpentry, and evidence of this highly skilled workforce is seen in the antebellum homes and buildings throughout the Black Belt. As renowned African American activist and educational reformer, Booker T. Washington, once said, “In a certain way, every slave plantation in the South was an industrial school.” The Civil War was costly for the South and for Alabama. As the Black Belt tolled through Reconstruction with the rest of the American South, it proved to be an era of progress in the arenas of public education and economic life of the state. Maintaining a labor system, especially in the Black Belt, was one of the leading issues after the war. While the white landowners wanted a labor force to work the land, the newly freed African Americans were resistant to going back into fields that they did not own. During this time, the sharecropping system emerged as a fundamental economic institution across the South. Sharecropping was especially prevalent in the Black Belt, where there was an abundance of unskilled labor and thousands of acres of land that needed to be put into production. This labor system remained in effect in the Black Belt until well into the twentieth century. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Booker T. Washington, a former slave, emerged as an African American leader who emphasized self-help for formerly enslaved persons. He preached a philosophy of accommodation which he made apparent during his “Atlanta Compromise” speech at the Atlanta Cotton States and International Exposition in 1895. Washington advocated “economic advancement through vocational education without challenging racial segregation and the disfranchisement for black voters.” Washington believed that the educational and economic needs of African Americans should be addressed first before they demanded civil rights. Because of his philosophy, Washington drew support from both the white and black citizens of the Black Belt. Many of Washington’s contemporaries criticized this philosophy and directly challenged segregation, referring to Washington as an “Uncle Tom” who was surrendering the civil rights of African Americans. Booker T. Washington was a controversial figure in African American affairs, but one historian described him as a “realist in a bitter time.” Washington wished to establish schools for African Americans that featured an “industrial” (vocational) curriculum that combined basic literacy and numeracy skills. Young boys would participate in agricultural and trades programs, while young girls would be instructed in home economics study. On July 4, 1881, Booker T. Washington began teaching thirty students, most of whom were adults, in a one-room shanty near Butler Chapel AME Zion Church in Macon County. Eventually, the Alabama State Legislature passed an act to establish the “Negro Normal School in Tuskegee” and authorized an appropriation of $2,000. The school, ironically, moved from its initial site at the church to an abandoned plantation nearby. Washington served as principal of the school from 1881 until his death in 1915. During his tenure, Washington gained institutional independence for the school. At the time of his death, Tuskegee Institute had 1,500 students, a $2 million endowment, 40 trades (majors), 100 fully equipped buildings, and 200 faculty. The History of the Rosenwald School Initiative renamed Tuskegee University continues to serve the Black Belt region today. Along with his accomplishments at Tuskegee, Booker T. Washington was also very instrumental in the development of educational institutions throughout the South. During the early twentieth century, a major effort to improve the quality of African American education began in the South when Julius Rosenwald, CEO of Sears and Roebuck, donated money to Tuskegee. In 1912, Rosenwald gave Washington permission to use a portion of the funds to construct six small schools in rural Alabama. One of these original six Rosenwald Schools, Shiloh, is located in Macon County. To measure the impact of the Rosenwald fund on the education of black southerners, one need only look at the statistics. “In 1932, more than one-fourth of all the black school children in the South were taught in Rosenwald Schools.” “One of every five African American schools in the South was a Rosenwald school when the school-building program ended in 1932.” The total cost of the program was $28,408,520, and these schools served 663,615 students in 883 counties in fifteen states. Although the school building program originated in Alabama and the first 80 schools were constructed in Alabama, the state would finish fifth overall in the number of buildings constructed from the Rosenwald fund. Between 1913-1932, 407 schools, shops, and teacher homes were constructed in the state. Of these, approximately one dozen of these buildings remain, and the majority of these are located in the Black Belt region. Most of these schools remained in operation until segregation was ruled unconstitutional in the 1954 Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. Even with the accomplishments of the Julius Rosenwald Fund, the majority of schools for former enslaved African-Americans in the Black Belt were privately funded. In 1867, just two years after the end of the Civil War, a group of former enslaved people formed the Lincoln School of Marion, in Perry County. Their petition for incorporation reads: “The true intent and meaning of this declaration being, that although we, for purposes of convenience, associate ourselves into a corporation, …every colored man and child in Marion is equally interested in the objects of our association…and we expect to obtain the property which we shall acquire from them principally, and for their benefit.” In the beginning, the Lincoln School found it difficult to pay and recruit teachers, so after just one year of operation, the school trustees entered into an agreement with the American Missionary Association (AMA). The school trustees gave buildings and groups to AMA and charged the organization with making repairs to the buildings, paying teachers, and maintaining a school for at least seven months each year. The trustees specified that the schoolhouse was to be “used in such a manner as to afford the means of education to the largest practicable number of applicants, preference being given to those preparing to teach.” The school grew so large that the AMA asked the State of Alabama to take over the normal department in 1874. In 1887, the State School moved to Montgomery where it became the State Normal School (which is now known as Alabama State University). Another private school for African Americans, Snow Hill Institute, was founded in 1893 by Dr. William J. Edwards, a graduate of Tuskegee University. Originally known as the Colored Literary and Industrial School, Snow Hill Institute opened as a one-room log cabin with just three students. It grew to include buildings, employ 35 staff members, and educate 400 students. Snow Hill operated as a private institution until 1924 when it became a public school. Like other institutions formed for the education of African Americans, Snow Hill was forced to close in 1973 due to integration. In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, there was a shift from a primarily agrarian economy to a more industrial economy. After the Civil War coal, iron ore, and railroads lured speculators in much the same way cotton and slaves had during the antebellum period. These men dreamed not only of personal wealth but of an industrial revolution that would supersede the now devastated plantation economy and form a prosperous “New South.” As this industrial revolution occurred, there was a population shift from the rural areas of the Black Belt to the industrial areas, as tenant farmers and sharecroppers left the fields for manufacturing jobs. From roughly 1880-1890, iron production began to dominate industry in Alabama, pulling workers from the farms to the cities. From 1890 to 1900, the value of cotton increased, and so cotton production, and its subsequent processing and manufacturing increased. During this time, Dallas County was an important area in terms of cotton mills. The Black Belt is still primarily an agricultural area, and cotton is still raised throughout the region. Over the years, however, crops have become more diversified, and since the 1980s the raising, processing, and marketing of catfish and shrimp has become an important Black Belt industry. Hunting plantations are also a part of the current economy. In the eastern Black Belt, the Bullock County town of Union Springs is known as the “Bird Dog Field Trials Capital of the World.” Timber is also an important industry supplied by the pine barrens which border the fertile belt of prairie. On land that was once used to cultivate cotton, one can see cattle grazing, as cattle farming has become another important agricultural industry for Black Belt residents.