Guest Opinion: Is Alabama abandoning impoverished folks in the Black Belt for ‘Bridge to Nowhere’?
As published on al.com
Eighty-nine-year-old Mildred Duke, a widow who grew up in Gallion, Alabama, has lived most of her life in one place, the house she’s called home since she was married in 1951. Several weeks ago, she was mowing grass in her front yard when men in yellow vests drove up in a truck. They traipsed across her property with a tripod in hand, surveying and hammering stakes into the ground and the surrounding fields. They even drilled in her neighbor’s pasture.
Duke turned off her lawnmower. “Y’all really taking my house?” she asked one of the men.
One guy shrugged. “We’re just surveying,” he said.
She knew they were surveying for the West Alabama Corridorproject, a four-lane corridor connecting Tuscaloosa to Mobile, which will begin construction this spring and should take years to complete. But no one from ALDOT has specifically told her that the highway is running through her living room, though the stakes signal the truth of the matter.
This massive undertaking, funded by the Rebuild Alabama Act, was adopted by the Legislature in 2019. A 10 cent per gallon state gas tax increase, the first increase since 1992, which makes the state’s share of gas 28 cents per gallon, is funding the plan. Starting in 2023, the state tax is tied to indexing, which means the tax can be adjusted to the cost index every two years. Most road projects like this qualify for federal matching dollars, but this will be funded 100% by Alabama taxpayers. With such a massive price tag, will there be any money left for any other projects? Highly anticipated for some, this 80-mile, $800 million project is the ultimate “bridge to nowhere” for Mrs. Duke and other folks living in the impoverished Black Belt.
All Mrs. Duke knows at this point is it looks like the highway will destroy where she has called home the past seventy years, along with nearby houses, trailers, and catfish ponds, where friends and family live and make a living. During the past few months, there have been a couple of meetings about the project and last week she received a card in the mail directing her to a website for more information, but she doesn’t have internet, and even if she did, she doesn’t own a computer.
If the state takes her property, she doesn’t know where she will move. “I’ll probably be dead before all of this happens and I hope I’ll just go to heaven,” she said. She’d planned to leave her house to her nephew, but now she’s unsure what the future will bring and is afraid she won’t be able to purchase or build a new home.
Mayor Woody Collins of Demopolis also fears this new plan is a nightmare. ALDOT cites costs and environmental issues as the reason the current plan bypasses Demopolis by several miles. With the current trajectory, Collins is concerned people will cruise past without stopping to eat, buy gas, or shop in Demopolis, Jackson, Grove Hill, and Thomasville. Woodson has stated in previous news articles that he wonders if the real reason for the project is to make the proposed route the quickest possible way for University of Alabama fans to drive from Mobile to Tuscaloosa.
This monumental undertaking involves several phases in which all corridors and bypasses have yet to be identified and issues surrounding historical site questions around Moundville have not been addressed. According to a recent article, “West Alabama Corridor Project could threaten search for Maliba,the 500-year-old Black Belt city where Tuskaloosa fought Desoto,” in The Perry County Herald, late last year University of West Alabama professor, Dr. Ashley Dumas, announced that her team had found evidence of the location of The Battle of Mabila, one of the bloodiest ever fought between Native Americans and Conquistadors. Almost 500 years ago, Chief Tuskaloosa, the legendary Muskogean chief led a powerful resistance against Spanish conquistador Hernando DeSoto and his men. Dumas is concerned the expansion of Highway 69 through Marengo and Hale counties, part of the proposed plan, could lead to the loss of significant archaeological sites and important artifacts from Alabama history. It seems that of the state foregoes federal funds, it doesn’t have the same rigorous and historical significance standards to meet before bulldozing sites like The Battle of Mabila.
Is this multi-million dollar project the best use of time, money, and focus in an area where in 2017 the United Nations highlighted the Third World living conditions for residents? The proposed by-pass through Gallion will be 11 miles west of Uniontown, one of the poorest communities in the state, with an average per capita income of $12,295 and 49% of the town living below the poverty line. The state of Alabama plans to spend $800 million on a road for no discernible reason, yet it leaves the residents of Uniontown without reliable, clean drinking water, which means residents often fall ill with E. coli and hookworm from water tainted with raw sewage.
In Lowndes County, according to a 2011 census board, 90% of people living there had inadequate or no septic system. Half of the conventional septic systems in place were failing or expected to fail.
The Black Belt also struggles with outmigration or the fact a young labor force leaves to find jobs elsewhere. Now that the pandemic has made more industries open to employees working remotely, why not spend this money building rural broadband since highspeed internet is one of the determining factors businesses use when choosing new locations? According to a 2020 al.com article, less than half the population in the Black Belt has access to high-speed internet while Perry and Choctaw county have no access at all. Building this highway creates jobs in the short-term, but it doesn’t promote long-term job growth that addresses fundamental infrastructure development like implementing rural broad brand does.
Sustained economic growth is also tied to quality education. Right now, the Black Belt is failing and falling far behind as it struggles to retain teachers and educate students. Just 11% of K-12 students scored well enough on state assessments to be considered ‘proficient’ and just 22% of Black Belt students were considered proficient in science, compared to 36% of non-Black Belt students, according to a recent al.com article by Ramsey Archibald. Teacher shortage and persistent poverty are at the root of this issue. Why not pay teachers what they’re worth and rebuild schools instead of a superhighway?
As this project moves forward, how will people like Mrs. Duke and their displaced families be compensated when we all know the value on the land, house, and community someone has called home their entire lives is immeasurable. The issues facing the Alabama Black Belt are complicated and the solutions multi-faceted. There’s not a quick fix, but are we abandoning and ignoring the real needs of residents in the Black Belt, the poorest area in the state and one of the most poverty-stricken regions in the country, and erasing archaeological treasures and historical artifacts, so football fans and beachgoers can shorten their trips by half and hour?