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124-672: North Carolina's 1st congressional district is located in the northeastern part of the state. It consists of many Black Belt counties that border Virginia and it extends southward into several counties of the Inner Banks and the Research Triangle . It covers many rural areas of northeastern North Carolina, among the state's most economically poor, as well as outer exurbs of urbanized Research Triangle. It contains towns and cities such as Greenville , Rocky Mount , Wilson , Goldsboro , Henderson , and Roanoke Rapids . The first district

248-545: A D+17 on the Cook Partisan Voting Index . Besides a brief period from 1895 until 1899 when the district was held by a Populist , the 1st district has been consistently Democratic since 1883. On February 23, 2022, the North Carolina Supreme Court approved a new map which changed the 1st district boundaries to add Chowan , Currituck , Franklin , Greene , Pasquotank , Perquimans counties and

372-538: A basis of Colombian era empire (roughly from 1492 to the 19th century), and predicted the 20th century to be domain of land power. The Heartland theory hypothesized a huge empire being brought into existence in the Heartland—which would not need to use coastal or transoceanic transport to remain coherent. The basic notions of Mackinder's doctrine involve considering the geography of the Earth as being divided into two sections:

496-516: A climate of capitalism. Hierarchical systems were a proponent in this climate of capitalism that eroded the agricultural business. In 1913, the USDA planned to distribute payments to the farmers. The farmers felt like they were being pushed to the margin with the empty promises the FHA and Georgia government was giving them. This shows that the FHA, local, and national governments had racist motivation behind reforming

620-403: A compromise that allowed white planters to make money while black workers preferred its relatively greater autonomy in comparison to slavery. As a result of the labor compromise that developed, the black belt saw less terroristic white supremacist violence than did northern Alabama. Fitzgerald's work thus adds specific teeth to the arguments of Steven Hahn —and before him, W. E. B. Du Bois —about

744-472: A fixed geography. French geography is focused on the evolution of polymorphic territories being the result of mankind's actions. It also relies on the consideration of long time periods through a refusal to take specific events into account. This method has been theorized by Professor Lacoste according to three principles: Representation ; Diachronie; and Diatopie. In The Spirit of the Laws , Montesquieu outlined

868-612: A fleet, were conducive to control over the sea. He proposed six conditions required for a nation to have sea power : Mahan distinguished a key region of the world in the Eurasian context, namely, the Central Zone of Asia lying between 30° and 40° north and stretching from Asia Minor to Japan. In this zone independent countries still survived – Turkey, Persia, Afghanistan, China, and Japan. Mahan regarded those countries, located between Britain and Russia, as if between "Scylla and Charybdis". Of

992-559: A foreign policy vision for Britain with his Eurocentric analysis of historical geography. His formulation of the Heartland Theory was set out in his article entitled " The Geographical Pivot of History ", published in England in 1904. Mackinder's doctrine of geopolitics involved concepts diametrically opposed to the notion of Alfred Thayer Mahan about the significance of navies (he coined the term sea power ) in world conflict. He saw navy as

1116-608: A foundation for the German variant of geopolitics, geopolitik . Influenced by the American geostrategist Alfred Thayer Mahan, Ratzel wrote of aspirations for German naval reach, agreeing that sea power was self-sustaining, as the profit from trade would pay for the merchant marine, unlike land power. The geopolitical theory of Ratzel has been criticized as being too sweeping, and his interpretation of human history and geography being too simple and mechanistic. Critically, he also underestimated

1240-459: A global vision. However, in complete opposition to Ratzel's vision, Reclus considers geography not to be unchanging; it is supposed to evolve commensurately to the development of human society. His marginal political views resulted in his rejection by academia. French geographer and geopolitician Jacques Ancel (1879–1936) is considered to be the first theoretician of geopolitics in France, and gave

1364-410: A grouping would have the capacity to outstrip America economically and, in the end, militarily. That danger would have to be resisted even if the dominant power was apparently benevolent, for if its intentions ever changed, America would find itself with a grossly diminished capacity for effective resistance and a growing inability to shape events." The main interest of the American leaders is maintaining

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1488-515: A higher quantity of food. Now, the plots have been transformed into the Black Belt Research and Experimentation Center. Auburn University used the lands that were filled with toxins to study how to manage fungus-infected pesticides and helped contribute to her beef production in the US. This area is used by students at Auburn for research but also is open for visitors to see the progression of farming in

1612-601: A historic site. It is the initial point where people go to start the Martin Luther King Jr. Street Historic Tour. To honor one of the martyrs of the civil rights area, the Interpretive Center was constructed as part of the historic tour. The Interpretive Center replicates how the Kings lived, with replicas of furniture, paintings, and household items which the Kings had in their house during the time. Additionally, there

1736-707: A large influence within the Russian military, police, and foreign policy elites and it has been used as a textbook in the Academy of the General Staff of the Russian military. Its publication in 1997 was well received in Russia and powerful Russian political figures subsequently took an interest in Dugin. According to Li Lingqun, a major feature of the People's Republic of China 's geopolitics

1860-473: A newfound interest in the Social Gospel , although not nearly at the level of Northern Protestant churches. Racial tensions and discrimination was not mentioned, nor the rate of lynchings, which peaked in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Many, probably most, slaves had become Christians during the antebellum period. Their religious preferences focused on evangelical religion with strong participation by

1984-591: A notable series of lectures at the European Center of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Paris and published Géopolitique in 1936. Like Reclus, Ancel rejects German determinist views on geopolitics (including Haushofer's doctrines). Braudel 's broad view used insights from other social sciences, employed the concept of the longue durée , and downplayed the importance of specific events. This method

2108-758: A perspective grounded in three assumptions: Connected with this stream, and former member of Hérodote editorial board, the French geographer Michel Foucher developed a long term analysis of international borders. He coined various neologism among them: Horogenesis : Neologism that describes the concept of studying the birth of borders , Dyade : border shared by two neighbouring states (for instance US territory has two terrestrial dyades : one with Canada and one with Mexico). The main book of this searcher "Fronts et frontières" (Fronts and borders) first published in 1991, without equivalent remains untranslated in English. Michel Foucher

2232-534: A rotating pastor and had a lighter schedule. Occasionally the Baptists would hold rallies promoting membership drives, domestic missions, Christian education, religious literature, prayer in the home, Christian citizenship, and one outside issue, laws to promote temperance. Until the late 19th century, the preachers continued to focus on the need for revivals, and Sabbath observance, on the evils of Catholicism, card playing, dancing and personal sin in general. Every few weeks

2356-532: A stable and adequate labor supply to the planter. Though restricted by the directives of the planter, workers in return received some measure of economic stability, including a social safety net, access to financial capital, and some physical protection in an often violent society. There were few alternative jobs in the Black Belt region. When factories opened or retooled to supply the war effort in World War II, and

2480-456: A threat from German (Teuton), Russian (Slav), and Japanese expansionism: The "fatal" relationship of Russia, Japan, and Germany "has now assumed through the urgency of natural forces a coalition directed against the survival of Saxon supremacy." It is "a dreadful Dreibund". Lea believed that while Japan moved against Far East and Russia against India, the Germans would strike at England, the center of

2604-498: Is a film shown during the tour that is called, "Here I stand". It is a reenactment of how the King's house was bombed during the boycott. Industrialization in small farming production was a mark of the history of the Black Belt. In Auburn, there were 1116 acres of land that were contaminated with fescue toxicity and were fed to cattle. This was just one of the 5 stations that were poisoned with toxic pesticides and fed cattle toxins to produce

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2728-524: Is addressed by Bert Chapman in Geopolitics: A Guide To the Issues , in which Chapman makes note that academic and professional International Relations journals are more amenable to the study and analysis of Geopolitics, and in particular Classical geopolitics, than contemporary academic journals in the field of political geography. In disciplines outside geography, geopolitics is not negatively viewed (as it often

2852-409: Is among academic geographers such as Carolyn Gallaher or Klaus Dodds ) as a tool of imperialism or associated with Nazism, but rather viewed as a valid and consistent manner of assessing major international geopolitical circumstances and events, not necessarily related to armed conflict or military operations. French geopolitical doctrines broadly opposed to German Geopolitik and reject the idea of

2976-531: Is an expert of the African Union for borders affairs. More or less connected with this school, Stéphane Rosière can be quoted as the editor in Chief of the online journal L'Espace politique , this journal created in 2007 became the most prominent French journal of political geography and Geopolitics with Hérodote. French philosopher Michel Foucault's dispositif introduced for the purpose of biopolitical research

3100-695: Is attempting to change the laws of the sea to advance claims in the South China Sea . Another geopolitical issue is PRC's claims over the territories of Taiwan against the government of the Republic of China . Various analysts state that China created the Belt and Road Initiative as a geostrategic effort to take a larger role in global affairs, and undermine what the Communist Party perceives as American hegemony . It has also been argued that China co-founded

3224-525: Is based on loose justifications. This has been observed in particular by critics of contemporary academic geography, and proponents of a "neo"-classical geopolitics in particular. These include Haverluk et al., who argue that the stigmatization of geopolitics in academia is unhelpful as geopolitics as a field of positivist inquiry maintains potential in researching and resolving topical, often politicized issues such as conflict resolution and prevention, and mitigating climate change . Negative associations with

3348-551: Is considered to be the first having coined the term in English as early as 1902 and later published in England in 1904 in his book Foundations of Modern Europe . Sir Halford Mackinder 's Heartland Theory initially received little attention outside the world of geography, but some thinkers have claimed that it subsequently influenced the foreign policies of world powers. Those scholars who look to MacKinder through critical lenses accept him as an organic strategist who tried to build

3472-541: Is currently represented by Don Davis . On February 5, 2016, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the 1st district, as well as the 12th , were gerrymandered along racial lines, which was unconstitutional, and must be redrawn by March 15, 2016. It was re-drawn again in 2019 following court-mandated redistricting, which removed portions of the Research Triangle from the district and changed it to D+3 from

3596-614: Is more like Britain's than Russia's in the New Great Game, where Russia plays the role that the Russian Empire originally did. Chen stated, "Regardless of the prospect, China through the BRI is deep in playing a 'New Great Game' in Central Asia that differs considerably from its historical precedent about 150 years ago when Britain and Russia jostled with each other on the Eurasian steppes." In

3720-509: Is not far from "where Sam Hose was crucified" [in a lynching], "to-day the centre of the Negro problem,-the centre of those nine million men who are America's dark heritage from slavery and the slave-trade." He continues: "Careless ignorance and laziness here, fierce hate and vindictiveness there,—these are the extremes of the Negro problem which we met that day, and we scarce knew which we preferred." The civil rights movement and related changes in

3844-737: Is the Edmund Pettus Bridge. This bridge gained widespread popularity when activists marched pridefully from Selma to Montgomery in opposition to discrimination against African Americans. Law enforcement came in and forcefully handled the protesters, with tear gas and physically assaulting the protesters. This showed the injustice and discrimination that the African Americans faced when they were just trying to fight for their rights. These events are now on TV for everyone to witness, and are termed "Bloody Sunday". Led by Martin Luther King Jr. in

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3968-526: Is war) in 1976. This book symbolizes the birth of this new school of geopolitics (if not so far the first French school of geopolitics as Ancel was very isolated in the 1930s–40s). Initially linked with communist party evolved to a less liberal approach. At the end of the 1980s he founded the Institut Français de Géopolitique (French Institute for Geopolitics) that publishes the Hérodote revue. While rejecting

4092-685: The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and New Development Bank to compete with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in development finance . According to Bobo Lo , the Shanghai Cooperation Organization has been advertised as a "political organization of a new type" claimed to transcend geopolitics. Political scientist Pak Nung Wong says that a major form of geopolitics between

4216-633: The Reconstruction era (1863–1877), in the Alabama black belt some compromise was reached through a sharecropping system in which local black farmers were under the protection of rich white landowners. According to a review of a 2015 history of Reconstruction in Alabama: The strength of African-American activism and, to a lesser extent, the moderation of elite planters meant that in the black belt Reconstruction essentially worked. Sharecropping developed as

4340-563: The Russian Academy of Sciences , Vadim Tsymbursky (1957–2009), coined the term "island-Russia" and developed the "Great Limitrophe " concept. Colonel-General Leonid Ivashov (retired), a Russian geopolitics specialist of the early 21st century, headed the Academy of Geopolitical Problems ( Russian : Академия геополитических проблем ), which analyzes the international and domestic situations and develops geopolitical doctrine. Earlier, he headed

4464-569: The Second Great Migration , when 4.5 million rural blacks left the region from 1940 to 1970. But the University of Alabama in 2007 classifies "roughly 200 counties" as comprising the Black Belt, with significant black populations. The Mississippi Encyclopedia adds to this definition a long history of cotton production. Political activists and historians continue to use "Black Belt" in considering politics in predominantly black rural areas in

4588-575: The United States Department of Agriculture . They trained and supplied black organizers, set up and funded local clubs, and gave farm and home demonstrations. They focused on the integral domestic work of cooking, hygiene, sewing, garden cultivation and food processing, and poultry raising. Not only did they teach new skills, they helped isolated rural women to meet each other and form supportive friendships. The systematic end of rural isolation meant that black rural women could affirm that "no one

4712-822: The World Island or Core, comprising Eurasia and Africa ; and the Peripheral "islands", including the Americas , Australia , Japan , the British Isles , and Oceania . Not only was the Periphery noticeably smaller than the World Island, it necessarily required much sea transport to function at the technological level of the World Island—which contained sufficient natural resources for a developed economy. Mackinder posited that

4836-524: The propaganda of Nazi Germany . The key concepts of Haushofer's Geopolitik were Lebensraum, autarky , pan-regions , and organic borders. States have, Haushofer argued, an undeniable right to seek natural borders which would guarantee autarky . Haushofer's influence within the Nazi Party has been challenged, given that Haushofer failed to incorporate the Nazis' racial ideology into his work. Popular views of

4960-421: The sharecroppers provided no capital and paid fees to the landowner with a share of the crop produced. Very little cash changed hands. The few existing local banks were small; cash was scarce and had to be saved by the landowners for paying taxes. The early 1920s were especially difficult financially in cotton growing regions. The boll weevil , a beetle that feeds on cotton buds and flowers, had migrated into

5084-519: The 1960s, the Voting Rights emerged. The people involved in the Voting Rights arranged the First Baptist Church. This church was used as a vehicle to give food, clothes, and supplies to fellow Voting Rights activists. The building where King spoke out against the discrimination that the African Americans were bearing, the church was destroyed in 1894 by law enforcement. In 1982, it was rebuilt as

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5208-672: The 60 Baptists attending represented 32 churches. By 1881 the church had 50 district associations, 600 churches, 700 preachers, and about 90,000 members in the state, and operated a small seminary in Selma; most of the ministers were strong orators but barely literate. Although the revivalist camp meeting movement was fading away in the white churches, it grew more popular in the black community. In addition to all-day Sunday services, many Black Baptists became active in Sunday schools and missionary societies. Although racial tensions often grew violent during

5332-559: The Black Belt has been a recent development. Chrissy Lutz and Dawn Herd-Clark in 2019 explored the situation of black housewives in Georgia's black belt in the 1920s and 1930s. They worked with outside agencies to improve their own work efficiency and economic opportunities. Fort Valley State College , a historically black college , collaborated with the segregated unit of the Cooperative Extension Service , an educational arm of

5456-545: The Black Belt, from a total of 71,000 in 1890 (of whom 86% were African American), to 215,000 in 1916. The planters in the region had been affluent before the Civil War, and typically belonged to the Presbyterian , Episcopal , or Methodist churches. After the war, facing economic losses and disruption to the economy, many of the owners sold out and moved to distant cities. Presbyterian and Episcopal church membership fell. Among

5580-450: The Black Belt, were rarely allowed to vote, apart from a few ministers, businessmen and schoolteachers. Political power was in the hands of a relatively closed white elite comprising the major landowners, along with local merchants and bankers. They had almost complete control of local government. They generally also had control of the state legislatures, which gerrymandered political districts to strongly favor rural areas and under-represent

5704-554: The Black Belt. The Tuskegee Institution National Historic Site: Carver Museum pays homage to Booker T. Washington and George Washington Carver. Each of these men worked to reform the agriculture system that was negatively transformed by discrimination and racism. When the African Americans were pushed out of their rightful land, the Tuskegee Institute was founded by Washington in 1881. This institution helped to educate African Americans about how to farm, their legal land rights, and

5828-755: The British Empire. He thought the Anglo-Saxons faced certain disaster from their militant opponents. Two national security advisors from the Cold War period, Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski , argued to continue the United States' geopolitical focus on Eurasia and, particularly Russia, despite the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War . Both continued their influence on geopolitics after

5952-516: The Civil War and emancipation of the slaves who had provided labor on vast estates in the American South during the antebellum period was for planters to divide the old plantations into many smaller farms that were then assigned to tenant farmers. The tenant farmer and his family worked their plot of land and provided the labor to plant and harvest the crop. Throughout the year, the tenants usually bought food and supplies weekly, on credit, through

6076-561: The Cold War, Kissinger argues, both sides of the Atlantic recognized that, "unless America is organically involved in Europe, it would later be obliged to involve itself under circumstances which would be far less favorable to both sides of the Atlantic. That is even more true today. Germany has become so strong that existing European institutions cannot strike a balance between Germany and its European partners all by themselves. Nor can Europe, even with

6200-540: The Court required the states to redistrict every decade to reflect census data, which many had neglected to conduct. The result was to shift political power toward the more populated and industrialized urban areas. Until the mid-20th century, the predominant agricultural system in the Black Belt involved interdependent white land owners, tenant farmers, and sharecroppers; most of the latter groups were African Americans. Tenants typically owned their own tools and draft animals, while

6324-702: The Democratic Party: For the next few years the Democrats seemed in control of the South, but even then deep challenges were building beneath the surface. Behind their show of unity, the Democratic Redeemers suffered deep divisions. Conflicts between upcountry and Black Belt, between town and country, and between former Democrats and former Whigs divided the Redeemers. The Democratic party proved too small to contain

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6448-494: The Main Directorate for International Military Cooperation of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation . Vladimir Karyakin, leading researcher at the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies , has proposed the term "geopolitics of the third wave". Aleksandr Dugin , a Russian political analyst who has developed a close relationship with Russia's Academy of the General Staff wrote " The Foundations of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia " in 1997, which has had

6572-461: The Rimland must be prevented. Spykman modified Mackinder's formula on the relationship between the Heartland and the Rimland (or the inner crescent), claiming that "Who controls the rimland rules Eurasia. Who rules Eurasia controls the destinies of the world." This theory can be traced in the origins of containment , a U.S. policy on preventing the spread of Soviet influence after World War II (see also Truman Doctrine ). Another follower of Mackinder

6696-410: The South rarely won any Black Belt elections after 1900, but it did send delegates to the presidential nominating conventions every four years, thus giving blacks some voice in national politics. President William Howard Taft used black Southern support to defeat ex-President Theodore Roosevelt for the GOP nomination in 1912. After 1900, African Americans, the majority of the population in most of

6820-465: The South. Depression-bred New Deal reforms, war-induced demand for labor in the North, perfection of cotton-picking machinery, and civil rights legislation and court decisions finally...destroyed the plantation system, undermined landlord or merchant hegemony, diversified agriculture and transformed it from a labor- to a capital-intensive industry, and ended the legal and extralegal support for racism. The discontinuity that war, invasion, military occupation,

6944-494: The South. For example, in 1962, Martin Luther King Jr. wrote of his "People to People" tour through the Black Belt of Virginia: "The idea of ' massive resistance ' was spawned not in Georgia or Alabama—–but in the hearts of the Southside Virginia, commonly known as the Black Belt." In 1964, King met with black leaders in to find a target locale to publicize the civil rights movement in Alabama. Large cities were eliminated, so according to historian Charles S. Aiken, "King had only

7068-426: The US and China includes cybersecurity competition, policy regulations regarding technology standards and social media platforms, and traditional and non-traditional forms of espionage. One view of the New Great Game is a shift to geoeconomic compared to geopolitical competition. The interest in oil and gas includes pipelines that transmit energy to China's east coast. Xiangming Chen believes that China's role

7192-440: The United States from Mexico in the late 19th century and had infested all U.S. cotton-growing areas by the 1920s, devastating the industry and the people working in the American South. The price of cotton plunged from 37 cents per pound in early 1920 to 10 cents in mid-1921. Land prices plunged 80% and tax rates went up. Tenants could not repay the storekeepers. Land owners were squeezed, for many had used credit to buy land during

7316-450: The World War bubble; and many farms were foreclosed—all this before the Great Depression struck in 1929. Raper's analysis of Black Belt banks shows that deposits plunged by half or more from 1918 to 1932. As a result, most local people became "very shy of banks." New Deal agricultural programs helped the land owners much more than the tenants. Landowners needed a great deal of labor at harvest time to pick cotton. The typical plan after

7440-450: The ambitions of all the white men who sought its rewards, too large and unwieldy to move decisively. During the period of disfranchisement after the Reconstruction era , mainly the years 1890–1907, white Democrats passed new state constitutions and state laws, and used informal local practices across the South to prevent African American citizens from registering to vote and voting. States became one-party Democratic bastions in which

7564-428: The assistance of Germany, manage […] Russia" all by itself. Thus Kissinger believed that no country's interests would ever be served if Germany and Russia were to ever form a partnership in which each country would consider itself the principal partner. They would raise fears of condominium. Without America, Britain and France cannot cope with Germany and Russia; and "without Europe, America could turn … into an island off

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7688-437: The balance of power in Eurasia. Having converted from an ideologist into a geopolitician, Kissinger retrospectively interpreted the Cold War in geopolitical terms—an approach which was not characteristic of his works during the Cold War. Now, however, he focused on the beginning of the Cold War: "The objective of moral opposition to Communism had merged with the geopolitical task of containing Soviet expansion." Nixon, he added,

7812-421: The basis of their religiosity and ability to articulate God's word. By 1900, the range of sermons and editorials had been enlarged to cover new social themes. Baptists still opposed Catholicism, but now they talked of cooperation with other Protestant churches. There was less emphasis on card playing and dancing, and more interest in issues of underpaid laborers, coal miners, and workers in sweatshops. This indicated

7936-453: The bottom of American regions in terms of quality of life indicators such as poverty rates, median incomes, mortality, unemployment rates, and educational levels. For example, since before the 1950s transportation routes have historically been inadequate in this region. To this day, air transportation facilities are limited. Peter Daniels investigated how the government pushed back on supporting small farms and farmers and pushed more towards

8060-509: The centenary of The Geographical Pivot of History, Historian Paul Kennedy wrote: "Right now with hundreds of thousands of US troops in the Eurasian rimlands and with administration constantly explaining why it has to stay the course, it looks as if Washington is taking seriously Mackinder's injunction to ensure control of the geographical pivot of history." Friedrich Ratzel (1844–1904), influenced by thinkers such as Darwin and zoologist Ernst Heinrich Haeckel , contributed to 'Geopolitik' by

8184-405: The churches held trials of their own members for sins such as drunkenness, dancing, or adultery; the usual participant punishment was humiliation or expulsion from the congregation. The theology was traditional, with no trace of modernist readings of the Bible. Unlike the Methodists and Presbyterians, few Baptist pastors were educated. Instead, the local congregation selected and ordained ministers on

8308-439: The cities. By the 1950s, many counties had a local Citizens' Council (the groups were commonly referred to as the "White Citizens' Councils"), which was part an associated network of white supremacist , extreme right organizations that directed white resistance to racial integration , especially against integrating the public schools. Federal intervention changed the situation in the 1970s. The Voting Rights Act of 1965

8432-418: The confiscation of slave property, and state and national legislation failed to bring in the mid nineteenth century finally arrived in the second third of the twentieth century. The most prominent analyst of the Black Belt was sociologist W. E. B. DuBois , who engaged in statistically based studies of family life, economic cooperation, and social conditions as editor of The Atlantic University Publications in

8556-428: The congregations, and led by a strong minister who typically was also a political leader. By 1867, freedmen, with help from the Freedmen's Bureau , began organizing their own separate all-black churches. Northern Methodist missionaries helped organize such churches as were affiliated with the national Methodist Church. More popular were the African Methodist Episcopal Church and African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church ,

8680-417: The country possessing this thick, dark, and naturally rich soil was, of course, the part of the South where the slaves were most profitable, and consequently they were taken there in the largest numbers. Later, and especially since the war, the term seems to be used wholly in a political sense—that is, to designate the counties where the black people outnumber the white. The boundaries of the subregion depend on

8804-451: The early 20th century. His 1903 book The Souls of Black Folk contains extensive analysis and reflection. Du Bois calls Albany, Georgia , in Dougherty County , the "heart of the Black Belt". He says: "Here are the remnants of the vast plantations." How curious a land is this,- how full of untold story, of tragedy and laughter, and the rich legacy of human life; shadowed with a tragic past, and big with future promise! Yet, he notes, it

8928-531: The end of the Cold War, writing books on the subject in the 1990s— Diplomacy and The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives . The Anglo-American classical geopolitical theories were revived. Kissinger argued against the belief that with the dissolution of the USSR, hostile intentions had come to an end and traditional foreign policy considerations no longer applied. "They would argue … that Russia, regardless of who governs it, sits astride

9052-407: The enduring significance of white resistance to black progress." The " Redeemers ", a Southern Democratic political coalition that sought to enforce white supremacy , came to power after Reconstruction ended in 1877 and ousted Black and White Republicans from political office across the South. Historian Edward L. Ayers argues the Redeemers were sharply divided, however, and fought for control of

9176-526: The exact criteria being used. Census data is used to identify rural Southern counties with a large black population in a particular year. Which percentage and which year depends on the goals of the project—to look at history, or at current patterns, or to project future trends. In 1980, Southern counties with at least 25% African American populations comprised 29% of the Southern United States ' population, falling to 23% in 2005. The white population in

9300-466: The expansion on the biological conception of geography, without a static conception of borders. Positing that states are organic and growing, with borders representing only a temporary stop in their movement, he held that the expanse of a state's borders is a reflection of the health of the nation—meaning that static countries are in decline. Ratzel published several papers, among which was the essay "Lebensraum" (1901) concerning biogeography . Ratzel created

9424-625: The financial managerial aspect of farming. Geopolitical At the level of international relations, geopolitics is a method of studying foreign policy to understand, explain, and predict international political behavior through geographical variables. These include area studies , climate , topography , demography , natural resources , and applied science of the region being evaluated. Geopolitics focuses on political power linked to geographic space, in particular, territorial waters and land territory in correlation with diplomatic history . Topics of geopolitics include relations between

9548-703: The first independent black denominations, whose missionaries planted thousands of new churches. White southern Methodists had a separate body, and they sponsored the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church . Small numbers of African Americans belonged to the Episcopalian and Presbyterian churches. All the Methodists had a hierarchical organization led by bishops. Many blacks organized independent Baptist churches, quick to establish congregations without white supervision. At their first state convention in 1868,

9672-623: The first time ever, a "non-Eurasian" power had emerged as a key arbiter of "Eurasian" power relations. The book states its purpose: "The formulation of a comprehensive and integrated Eurasian geostrategy is therefore the purpose of this book." Although the power configuration underwent a revolutionary change, Brzezinski confirmed three years later, Eurasia was still a mega-continent. Like Spykman, Brzezinski acknowledges that: "Cumulatively, Eurasia's power vastly overshadows America's." In classical Spykman terms, Brzezinski formulated his geostrategic "chessboard" doctrine of Eurasia, which aims to prevent

9796-607: The form of a hypothesized 'racial character,' to the factor of greatest significance in the constitution of human society. These differences led after 1933 to friction and ultimately to open denunciation of geopolitics by Nazi ideologues. Nevertheless, German Geopolitik was discredited by its (mis)use in Nazi expansionist policy of World War II and has never achieved standing comparable to the pre-war period. The resultant negative association, particularly in U.S. academic circles, between classical geopolitics and Nazi or imperialist ideology,

9920-731: The general election was a formality. The real battles took place inside the Democratic Party primaries, which were made private by law and not open to blacks. The result was to thwart the objective of the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which sought to protect the suffrage of freedmen after the American Civil War . Congress did not object, and the Supreme Court generally approved. The mostly black Republican Party of

10044-462: The generalizations and broad abstractions employed by the German and Anglo-American traditions (and the new geographers ), this school does focus on spatial dimension of geopolitics affairs on different levels of analysis. This approach emphasizes the importance of multi-level (or multi-scales) analysis and maps at the opposite of critical geopolitics which avoid such tools. Lacoste proposed that every conflict (both local or global) can be considered from

10168-526: The geological region known as the Black Belt . The geology emphasizes the highly fertile black soil. Historically, the black belt economy was based on cotton plantations – along with some tobacco plantation areas along the Virginia-North Carolina border. The valuable land was largely controlled by rich whites, and worked by very poor, primarily black slaves who in many counties constituted a majority of

10292-562: The grain reserves of Ukraine, and many other natural resources. Mackinder's notion of geopolitics was summed up when he said: Who rules Central and Eastern Europe commands the Heartland. Who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island. Who rules the World-Island commands the World. Nicholas J. Spykman was both a follower and critic of geostrategists Alfred Mahan, and Halford Mackinder . His work

10416-453: The importance of social organization in the development of power. After World War I , the thoughts of Rudolf Kjellén and Ratzel were picked up and extended by a number of German authors such as Karl Haushofer (1869–1946), Erich Obst , Hermann Lautensach, and Otto Maull . In 1923, Karl Haushofer founded the Zeitschrift für Geopolitik (Journal for Geopolitics), which was later used in

10540-581: The industrial centers of the Periphery were necessarily located in widely separated locations. The World Island could send its navy to destroy each one of them in turn, and could locate its own industries in a region further inland than the Periphery (so they would have a longer struggle reaching them, and would face a well-stocked industrial bastion). Mackinder called this region the Heartland . It essentially comprised Central and Eastern Europe : Ukraine , Western Russia , and Mitteleuropa . The Heartland contained

10664-429: The interests of international political actors focused within an area, a space, or a geographical element, relations which create a geopolitical system. Critical geopolitics deconstructs classical geopolitical theories, by showing their political or ideological functions for great powers . There are some works that discuss the geopolitics of renewable energy . According to Christopher Gogwilt and other researchers,

10788-486: The land directly, using black labor paid in cash. The white landowners held all the political power, and fought vigorously against cash-dispensing government welfare programs that would undermine the cashless system. Economic historians Lee Alston and Joseph Ferrie (1999) describe the system as essentially an informal contract that bound employer and worker through the provision of housing, medical care, and other in-kind services along with cash wages. At its heart, it guaranteed

10912-545: The land themselves. Their reduced need for resident farm labor forced many tenant farmers and sharecroppers off the land resulting in an even greater black emigration to the North and West. This is known as the Second Great Migration . Diversified agriculture replaced much of the cotton and tobacco, and gradually industrial-scale agriculture became dominant in large areas of the region. The rural Black Belt, with its largely African American population, has historically ranked toward

11036-503: The late 19th century, formerly enslaved African Americans in Alabama, now freedmen , were concentrated in the Black Belt, which ran across the central part of the state, mainly in Greene , Hale , Perry , Sumter , Marengo , Dallas , Wilcox , Lowndes , Montgomery , and Bullock counties. Freedmen established churches independent of white supervision, and their own Baptist state and regional associations. Baptist membership grew rapidly in

11160-419: The local country store (sometimes owned by the planter). At harvest time, the tenants picked and sold their cotton, paid the merchant, and gave the landowner his one-third. There seldom was much cash left over. For sharecroppers, the landlord supplied all their needs during the year and then took the crop. The annual cycle started again, often with a large turnover of sharecroppers. Landowners also worked some of

11284-655: The military draft was introduced, large numbers of African American farmers left for the army or cash-paying jobs in nearby or distant cities, particularly on the West Coast. This population movement was called the Great Migration . With the beginning of the war, outbound migration increased significantly. A decade after the end of the war, a practical combination of more efficient machinery, such as tractors and cotton harvesters and chemical herbicides finally became available to cotton planters and many landowners began farming

11408-540: The physical integrity of the lands. Farmers like the Salters could no longer depend on crops like cotton and seasonal crops to support their families, or sell enough to support their families. Even farmers who had more money saved before the government took over their farmlands were still in a parallel position to the lower class farmers. The family farmers and their lands were being replaced by industrial means, and their families stood no chance physically nor did their farms. In

11532-484: The placement of houses in relation to one another and to non-domestic buildings. In certain areas of what was once the Black Belt, citizens began to honor the events that took place there. In Selma, Alabama there is the Central Loop located in the heart of the city, which is rich in the Black Belt history. The Civil War Battle of Selma and the Voting Rights era were the heart of Selma's history. One attraction of Selma

11656-651: The planet – the Royal Geographic Society in London" Haushofer adopted both Mackinder's Heartland thesis and his view of the Russian-German alliance – powers that Mackinder saw as the major contenders for control of Eurasia in the twentieth century. Following Mackinder he suggested an alliance with the Soviet Union and, advancing a step beyond Mackinder, added Japan to his design of the Eurasian Bloc. In 2004, at

11780-661: The political acumen and solidarity of rural African Americans. White planters obviously were at the top of economic and political ladders, but black tenant farmers were real agents of power. William J. Northen (1835–1913), was the Governor of Georgia from 1890 to 1894. A leading Baptist minister, Northen was president of the Georgia Baptist Convention from 1892 to 1910, and president of the Southern Baptist Convention from 1899 to 1901. His political rhetoric

11904-560: The population. Generally the term is applied to a larger region than that defined by its geology. After 1945, a large fraction of the laborers were replaced by machinery, and they joined the Great Migration to cities of the Midwest and West. Political analysts and historians continue to use the term Black Belt to designate some 200 counties in the South from Virginia to Texas that have a history of majority African American population and cotton production. By 1894, political commentators used

12028-467: The principle of spaces polymorphic faces depending from many factors among them mankind, culture, and ideas) as opposed to determinism. Due to the influence of German Geopolitik on French geopolitics, the latter were for a long time banished from academic works. In the mid-1970s, Yves Lacoste —a French geographer who was directly inspired by Ancel, Braudel and Vidal de la Blache—wrote La géographie, ça sert d'abord à faire la guerre (Geography first use

12152-878: The production of history of African Americans raised new interest in elements of their history in the South, including during slavery times. Since the late 20th century, there has been a new emphasis on the restoration, preservation and historical analysis of African American dwelling units in the Black Belt, especially those surviving from slavery days. Ashley A. Dumas, et al. explain the rationale: Slave houses are artifacts. Their attributes can be recorded, analyzed, and broad patterns about their historical context, their builders, and inhabitants revealed. The methods of construction, for instance, often indicate climate, economy, and available technology. Ethnographic and archaeological studies demonstrate that houses, yards, and landscapes reflect cultural values and social relationships and changes to these. The organization of labor may be inferred from

12276-500: The remainder of Vance County while removing Wayne County . Counties in the 2023–2025 district map : Lost contested election before the end of the term. 36°03′N 77°17′W  /  36.05°N 77.29°W  / 36.05; -77.29 Black Belt in the American South The Black Belt in the American South refers to the social history , especially concerning slavery and black workers, of

12400-540: The role of geopolitics in the Nazi Third Reich suggest a fundamental significance on the part of the geo-politicians in the ideological orientation of the Nazi state. Bassin (1987) reveals that these popular views are in important ways misleading and incorrect. Despite the numerous similarities and affinities between the two doctrines, geopolitics was always held suspect by the National Socialist ideologists. This

12524-442: The same counties fell from 23% to 17%. In total numbers, these counties included 6,700,000 blacks in 1980, and 8,400,000 in 2005. They included 10,700,000 whites in 1980 and 11,700,000 in 2005. In 1936, sociologist Arthur Raper described the Black Belt as some 200 plantation counties where blacks represented more than 50% of the population, lying "in a crescent from Virginia to Texas". Black population decreased in some areas after

12648-436: The shores of Eurasia." Nicholas J. Spykman 's vision of Eurasia was strongly confirmed: "Geopolitically, America is an island off the shores of the large landmass of Eurasia, whose resources and population far exceed those of the United States. The domination by a single power of either of Eurasia's two principal spheres—Europe and Asia—remains a good definition of strategic danger for America. Cold War or no Cold War. For such

12772-523: The slave system and their efforts were not satisfactory. The USDA was only focusing on large and industrial farms. In turn, this would lead the small farmers (part of the Black Belt) off and out of their lands. Salter, who worked at Tougaloo College, studied how industrialization affected black farmers. They talked about the fact that the chemical herbicides that the government had used to produce crops more quickly and of lesser quality, started to deteriorate

12896-561: The state's small nonmetropolitan cities from which to select the place to focus the campaign for new voting rights legislation.... There was no other choice but the "open spaces" of the Black Belt, and in the Black Belt there was no alternative to Selma ." In 2012, political scientist Seth McKee concluded that in the 1964 election, "Once again, the high level of support for Goldwater in the Deep South, and especially their Black Belt counties [where most blacks were still disenfranchised], spoke to

13020-446: The strategic management of geopolitical interests…. But in the meantime it is imperative that no Eurasian challenger emerges, capable of dominating Eurasia and thus also of challenging America… For America the chief geopolitical prize is Eurasia…and America's global primacy is directly dependent on how long and how effectively its preponderance on the Eurasian continent is sustained." The Austro-Hungarian historian Emil Reich (1854–1910)

13144-409: The term "Black Belt" so often that the term was already very well known in the United States. The Nation reported in 1894: There are 12 counties in Alabama in each of which the blacks are twice as numerous as the whites. These 12 counties, stretching across southern Central Alabama from Georgia and Mississippi, constitute the principal portion of the famous Black Belt. By 1900, the term "Black Belt"

13268-684: The term "geopolitics" and its practical application stemming from its association with World War II and pre-World War II German scholars and students of geopolitics are largely specific to the field of academic geography, and especially sub-disciplines of human geography such as political geography. However, this negative association is not as strong in disciplines such as history or political science, which make use of geopolitical concepts. Classical geopolitics forms an important element of analysis for military history as well as for sub-disciplines of political science such as international relations and security studies . This difference in disciplinary perspectives

13392-449: The term is currently being used to describe a broad spectrum of concepts, in a general sense used as "a synonym for international political relations", but more specifically "to imply the global structure of such relations"; this usage builds on an "early-twentieth-century term for a pseudoscience of political geography " and other pseudoscientific theories of historical and geographic determinism . Alfred Thayer Mahan (1840–1914)

13516-429: The territory which Halford Mackinder called the geopolitical heartland, and it is the heir to one of the most potent imperial traditions." Therefore, the United States must "maintain the global balance of power vis-à-vis the country with a long history of expansionism." After Russia, the second geopolitical threat which remained was Germany and, as Mackinder had feared ninety years ago, its partnership with Russia. During

13640-577: The two monsters – Britain and Russia – it was the latter that Mahan considered more threatening to the fate of Central Asia . Mahan was impressed by Russia's transcontinental size and strategically favorable position for southward expansion. Therefore, he found it necessary for the Anglo-Saxon "sea power" to resist Russia. Homer Lea , in The Day of the Saxon (1912), asserted that the entire Anglo-Saxon race faced

13764-477: The unification of this mega-continent. "Europe and Asia are politically and economically powerful…. It follows that… American foreign policy must…employ its influence in Eurasia in a manner that creates a stable continental equilibrium, with the United States as the political arbiter.… Eurasia is thus the chessboard on which the struggle for global primacy continues to be played, and that struggle involves geo- strategy –

13888-437: The view that man and societies are influenced by climate. He believed that hotter climates create hot-tempered people and colder climates aloof people, whereas the mild climate of France is ideal for political systems. Considered one of the founders of French geopolitics, Élisée Reclus , is the author of a book considered a reference in modern geography (Nouvelle Géographie universelle). Alike Ratzel, he considers geography through

14012-466: The whites, Methodism grew, as did Baptist congregations. In addition, new fundamentalist sects, such as Holiness and Nazarene, began to emerge, but their rapid growth came after 1900. In the white community, Baptist church services were typically held Sundays at 11 AM and 6 PM, with an earlier Sunday school for children. During the week, there were prayer meetings and meetings of the ladies' society and missionary organizations. Smaller rural churches shared

14136-409: Was Karl Haushofer who called Mackinder's Geographical Pivot of History a "genius' scientific tractate." He commented on it: "Never have I seen anything greater than those few pages of geopolitical masterwork." Mackinder located his Pivot, in the words of Haushofer, on "one of the first solid, geopolitically and geographically irreproachable maps, presented to one of the earliest scientific forums of

14260-441: Was a frequent commentator on world naval strategic and diplomatic affairs. Mahan believed that national greatness was inextricably associated with the sea—and particularly with its commercial use in peace and its control in war. Mahan's theoretical framework came from Antoine-Henri Jomini , and emphasized that strategic locations (such as choke points , canals, and coaling stations), as well as quantifiable levels of fighting power in

14384-422: Was a geopolitical rather than an ideological cold warrior. Three years after Kissinger's Diplomacy , Zbigniew Brzezinski followed suit, launching The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives and, after three more years, The Geostrategic Triad: Living with China, Europe, and Russia. The Grand Chessboard described the American triumph in the Cold War in terms of control over Eurasia: for

14508-545: Was also adopted in the field of geopolitical thought where it now plays a role. The geopolitical stance adopted by Russia has traditionally been informed by a Eurasian perspective, and Russia's location provides a degree of continuity between the Tsarist and Soviet geostrategic stance and the position of Russia in the international order. In the 1990s, a senior researcher at the Institute of Philosophy, Russian Academy of Sciences of

14632-479: Was based on assumptions similar to Mackinder's, including the unity of world politics and the world sea. He extends this to include the unity of the air. Spykman adopts Mackinder's divisions of the world, renaming some: Under Spykman's theory, a Rimland separates the Heartland from ports that are usable throughout the year (that is, not frozen up during winter). Spykman suggested this required that attempts by Heartland nations (particularly Russia ) to conquer ports in

14756-401: Was based on his religious outlook. He often addressed racial issues at a time when the rate of lynching was growing rapidly. Northen believed that advances in medicine and health would ultimately help African Americans achieve salvation. He promoted the ideology of the modernizing New South , but did not abandon the policy of white supremacy . The study of women's history and gender roles in

14880-400: Was commonly used to denote a geopolitical region, much like later coinages such as snow belt , rust belt , sun belt and Bible Belt . Booker T. Washington wrote in his 1901 autobiography I have often been asked to define the term "Black Belt". So far as I can learn, the term was first used to designate a part of the country which was distinguished by the colour of the soil. The part of

15004-464: Was inspired by the French geographer Paul Vidal de la Blache (who in turn was influenced by German thought, particularly that of Friedrich Ratzel whom he had met in Germany). Braudel's method was to analyse the interdependence between individuals and their environment. Vidalian geopolitics is based on varied forms of cartography and on possibilism (founded on a societal approach of geography—i.e. on

15128-421: Was on their own." Economic historians of the South generally emphasize the continuity of the system of white supremacy and cotton plantations in the Black Belt from the late colonial era into the mid-20th century, when it collapsed. Harold D. Woodman summarizes the external forces that caused this disintegration from the 1920s to the 1970s: When significant change finally occurred, its impetus came from outside

15252-550: Was strictly enforced, to expand the franchise. During the 1960s, the US Supreme Court ruled in several cases covering rural bias in legislatures, saying that under the Equal Protection Clause , states needed to redistrict based on the principle of one man, one vote for equitable representation. As a result, states were prohibited from having bicameral legislatures in which one house was elected by county. In addition,

15376-499: Was understandable, for the underlying philosophical orientation of geopolitics did not comply with that of National Socialism. Geopolitics shared Ratzel's scientific materialism and geographic determinism, and held that human society was determined by external influences—in the face of which qualities held innately by individuals or groups were of reduced or no significance. National Socialism rejected in principle both materialism and determinism and also elevated innate human qualities, in

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