Blacks in Space: Land Tenure and Wellbeing in Perry County, Alabama

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Blacks in Space Land Tenure and Well-being in
Perry County, Alabama

• Rory Fraser
• Center For Forestry and Ecology
• Alabama AM University

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Presentation Outline

• Introduction
• Background and Historical Aspects of Land Tenure
  and Well-being
• Proposed Study
• Data Collection, Analysis
• Results
• Conclusion

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Introduction

• In spite of the great socio-economic importance
  of forests in the South, we still know relatively
  little about the relationships between forests
  and minority and limited resource landowners
• (Schelhas and Zabawa 2000).
• Previous efforts to understand persistent poverty
  in the south focused on the role of farm size,
  ownership type and the barriers related to
  institutions services, and racial discrimination
• Importance of the relationship between spatial
  distribution of land tenure arrangement and
  wellbeingneeds to be explored
• (Bliss et al., 1998)
• This study investigated the relationship between
  land tenure and well-being in a spatial
  perspective.

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Study Area
Perry County, Alabama
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Land use land cover and Tenure changes

• Pre-Colonial
• Plantations and King Cotton
• Reconstruction Jim Crow
• Farm mechanization, Boll Weevil and WW1
• New Deal Programs
• Emergence of Forest Regime
• Conversion of agricultural land and intensive
  management of virgin forest land
• Alabama legislation balance agriculture with
  industry
• Opening of Pulp and Paper industries
• Single species plantation
• Change in landscape and tenancy
• Fragmentation or consolidation of land

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Change in land use land cover and tenancy

• yeoman farmer ?
• plantation system ?
• sharecropping ?
• individual small farmers ?
• commercial farmers?
• large forest plantations

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Study Objectives

• Examined the relationship between land tenure and
  well-being in a rural, predominantly
  Afro-American County
• Examined the concentration of Afro-Americans and
  the well-being of the Afro-American Population at
  the block groups level.
• Explored the spatial relationship between
  well-being and land cover type and compared this
  relationship between whites and Afro-American
  groups

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Data and Methodology

• Census 2000 Data
• Census Block Group (CBG) level. well-being
  measures - population, race, income, education
  and poverty.
• 2. Digitized Plat (Ownership) Maps
• Ownership maps were digitized - parcels for each
  land-ownership category (Forest Industry,
  National Forest, etc.)
• 3. Landsat ETM 2000 Satellite Data
• Image processed and classified into Cropland,
  Forestland and Other category using ERDAS Imagine
  8.6 and ArcView 3.3
• These layers were overlaid for further Analysis

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Classified Landsat ETM 2000 Image of Perry County
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Forestland Distribution in 15 Block Groups
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(No Transcript)
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Spatial Arrangement of different landownership
category in Perry County
Afro-American Parcels
Non-Timber Industry Parcels
Timber Industry Parcels
National Forest Parcels
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Spatial Arrangement of Non-Timber Industry
Parcels in Perry Co.
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Spatial Arrangement of National Forest Parcels in
Perry County
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Spatial Arrangement of Timber Industry Parcels in
Perry County
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Spatial Arrangement of Afro-American Parcels in
Perry County
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Afro-American landownership

• 1,416 Afro-American landowners were identified
• 1,177 were not recorded in the Plat map
• 238 landowners were listed 354 times.
• Most of the unlisted Landowners (1,044) had
  Perry county address. Others had out county and
  out State addresses.
• Individuals listed on the Plat map
• - 230 had in-county addresses
• - 51 had in-state but not in-county address
• - 43 had out-of state addresses
• Evidence of high number of absentee ownership
• The absentee owners who live in Northern
  Industrial cities had the highest average acreage
  (77 acres), compared to in-county holders (66
  acres) and in-state holders (47 acres)

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Distribution of Afro-American Population and
landowners as well as land cover types in 15
census block groups
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Concentration of Black Landownership in 15 Block
Groups
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Result

• Relationship between land cover type and
  well-being measures
• Well-being indicators
• poverty,
• income
• education, and
• employment

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Per Capita Income of Whites and Blacks Population
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B.S. Graduates () among white and black
populations
0.00
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Percentage of Employed Whites and Blacks
Population
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Percentage of below poverty Level population in
15 Block Groups
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Summary Conclusion

• Highly segregated county
• The top half of the county is heavily forested
  with predominant white population. However,
  poverty levels are lowest in the county. In this
  region, Gaps are high in terms of well-being
  measures between whites and Afro-Americans.
• The other end (south) of the county, is cropland
  and pasture land dominated with predominant
  population of Afro-Americans. Poverty rate is
  extraordinarily high. Income gap between race is
  considerable. Non-Timber Industry Corporations
  have their larger holdings.
• AfroAmerican Landowners and population are more
  likely to be in the crop/pasture land area, but
  Afro-American Income is lower in the Forest
  dominated Area.
• Significant number of Absentee landownership in
  County

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Acknowledgement

• USDA Forest Service Southern Research Station
• for financial support
• Alabama AM University for institutional support
• Buddhi Gyawali, Ph.D. student
• John Schelas, USDA Forest Service, Tuskegee