“All [Our] Lives [We] Had to Fight”: Constructing Violence and the American Dream in the Southern Black Belt

• In Event: Roundtable: Leveraging History and Criminology: Learning from the Past to Theorize the Contemporary

Abstract

The Black Belt region of the Southern United States has been described by its historically fertile land and high percentage of black residents. This crescent shaped region from Virginia to parts of Texas, like the rest of the South, has high levels of violence influenced by what some suggest to be a culture of honor. This research explored how a history of state failure to provide protection for property and citizenship for sectors of the population may have created conditions that reinforce a perceived need for the use violence in interpersonal disputes in the Southern Black Belt (SBB). Using Institutional Anomie Theory, the work qualitatively explore relationships between goals and violent and nonviolent means for attainment. Using a central and historically relevant former “capital” of the black belt deemed murder capital of 1988, themes of trust and awareness of state resources for dispute resolution, agency, and rights were explored to better understand the logics that are used to justify violent retaliation. Oral histories from the failed local civil rights movement reinforce and understanding how these logics are reflected inter-generationally. This project argues that the historical conditions of the region created a sense of hopelessness where violence becomes an important tool and explore how the theoretical use of the American Dream concept may limit our exploration of violence as a political and social means in and of itself.

Author

• James Pratt, University of California, Irvine