This series in the “Resilient Rural America” project is part of the BNG Storytelling Projects Initiative.
As the United States’ unique regional identities begin to shape society and public policy in unprecedented ways, the pattern of poverty in America’s most remote rural communities beckons our focus. Decades of economic disinvestment, isolation and systemic racism in these regions have culminated in alarming deficiencies in basic housing, health, education and employment among families and individuals. In May 2018, NPR’s Brakkton Booker even declared the state of rural poverty in the U.S. ‘an emergency’ in his examination of the country’s unfavorable world poverty ranking. Has the United States forgotten its countryside? What strength and resilience may yet be stirring outside our city limits?
Eighteen years ago, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship established an initial 20-year commitment to the 20 poorest counties in the United States, and has been resourcing asset-based development in those counties ever since. Based in five ethno-geographic regions — Native American lands, the Rio Grande Valley, Mississippi River Delta, Cotton Belt and Appalachia — development personnel and local leaders continue to address the realities of rural poverty by focusing on education, health care, housing and social enterprise. After nearly 20 years of partnership, we visit these unique communities to examine the singular nature of poverty in rural America and tell the stories of development among its courageous and resilient people.
Our Resilient Rural America series:
Alabama: Perry County
Alabama: Perry County is a series about holding a healthy tension between a perspective of scarcity and one of joy and strength. What, in all realities, appears to be extreme poverty may actually represent generations of strong, resilient families who have made a true home in Perry County.
This series will address the hope flickering in Perry County, the story of a resilient couple who finds a home, and video interviews of those connected to Sowing Seeds of Hope.
This series is written by Blake Tommey. Photos are by Lesley-Ann Hix Tommey. Videos are recorded and edited by Blake and Lesley-Ann Tommey.
Texas: Hidalgo County
Despite the Rio Grande’s unmistakable capacity to both give and strip away life, there is yet a more formidable power in Hidalgo County, Texas, and it flows from within. It is a mighty current of resilience, propelling you toward more than fields and dollars, toward another semester of English classes, toward finally earning your GED, toward the purpose and passion that God has placed inside of you, toward a new opportunity to grow, to thrive and to find home once again.
This series is written by Blake Tommey. Photos are by Lesley-Ann Hix Tommey. Videos are recorded and edited by Blake and Lesley-Ann Tommey.
Arkansas Delta
Like the rising river in the Arkansas Delta, the persistence of poverty still looms just over the levee, threatening to wash young people down paths of violence, drugs, food insecurity, unemployment and early death.
This series will address the precise focus on literacy and leadership development to build children’s imaginations, the story of Swim Camp where children and teenagers not only learn to swim but learn to pursue leadership, and video interviews of those connected to Together for Hope Arkansas.
This series is written by Blake Tommey. Photos are by Lesley-Ann Hix Tommey. Videos are recorded and edited by Blake and Lesley-Ann Tommey.
Southeast Kentucky
Poverty is not part of your culture, character or identity. It’s simply a reality from which most human beings are only one catastrophe away. The challenges of life in southeast Kentucky merely augment the effects of the natural misfortunes we all face. And a person’s misfortune, whether caused by medical bills, a violent partner or a learning disability, should give us no fodder for stereotypes and discriminatory images of despair, or even of “poverty.”
This series is written by Blake Tommey. Photos and videos are by Blake Tommey.