Surviving in the Black Belt Amid Pandemic and Job Loss

Residents of America’s Black Belt are depending on each other to weather the coronavirus pandemic, which is complicating an already-tough life in the impoverished region.

In Alabama, a community foundation is giving away 100,000 face masks while coordinating food giveaways. A small church is providing donated milk to anyone who needs it. And volunteers loaded vehicles with food in the historic civil rights town of Selma.

The region drove the South’s cotton economy before the Civil War. Now it’s suffering some of the nation’s highest unemployment and infection rates.

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