Birding In Alabama’s Black Belt
Jennifer Kornegay | Bitter Southerner | January 17, 2023
https://bittersoutherner.com/feature/2023/birding-in-alabamas-black-belt
By 9 a.m. on a Saturday in late July, despite a pale gray blanket of clouds blocking the worst of the sun, the temperature in Newbern, Alabama, deep in the state’s Black Belt region, is scorching. Still, people keep arriving at The Joe Farm, spying the sign from the county road and slowing to park on the shoulder. With a huge smile claiming most of his face, Christopher Joe yells and waves, greeting people with hearty handshakes or hugs and moving through the groups like a party host. There are old people. Young people. Folks from a few miles down the road and farther away in the state. People from Michigan, Mississippi, Arkansas, Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Vermont. All dressed in sensible shoes and wide-brimmed hats, with binoculars or cameras (or both) hanging around their necks, they turn their faces up and intensely search the skies when detecting the slightest movement overhead.
These birders have come to The Joe Farm as attendees of Alabama Audubon’s Black Belt Birding Festival for a show promising to provide “all kinds of kicks and thrills.” Nearby, Christopher’s dad, Cornelius, starts to cut hay in one of the farm’s pastures, and the whirring blades dragging behind his tractor scare up a smorgasbord of insects. Set up a big bug buffet, and the birds — specifically, swallow-tailed and Mississippi kites — will come. It’s an offering distinct to Christopher’s Connecting With Birds and Nature Tours business. “We bring the birds to the people,” he says.
Depending on who is defining it, the Black Belt is a collection of 12 to 21 counties in central Alabama (south of Birmingham), but the entire region earns its name from the rich, fertile soil that made agriculture its dominant industry for decades. The western portion of this region, including Hale County, home to The Joe Farm, spreads out as a largely rural landscape where the population is predominantly Black. Stands of tall loblolly pines and old, broad-branched hardwoods break the oceans of grass covering flat fields and rolling hills. It’s heavy with idyllic scenes, but despite this natural richness, these counties remain just as weighted by poverty.
Cotton once blanketed much of the region — a crop that depended upon enslaved labor. Even after slavery was abolished, Black people who stayed were shackled by Jim Crow policies that denied them access to decision-making power. Soon after, many of the Civil Rights Movement’s most pivotal moments played out in the Black Belt, including the infamous “Bloody Sunday” crossing of the Edmund Pettus Bridge — a dark day seen around the world that would eventually catalyze the passage of the Voting Rights Act.
Yet plantation culture’s racist legacy has trickled down, contributing to today’s lingering disenfranchisement, ranging from economic to educational to environmental. The hope that the Black Belt can be fertile ground for a different future keeps and attracts people wanting to drive positive change. One of those people is Andrew Freear, director of Rural Studio, a team of Auburn University School of Architecture faculty and students. The team has been living and working in Hale County for close to 30 years to address the shelter needs of the underserved area by designing and building homes that are sustainable and affordable as well as beautiful, plus parks and other public spaces.
“There are success stories here now,” Freear says. “There are issues, but there are so many role models, remarkable locals with big hearts, who are rising above it all.” People like Barbara Williams, the librarian at Newbern Library, who, though retired, has transformed a country library into a vital community center with a slate of engaging kids’ programs. There’s also Emefa Butler, a Black Belt native and founder of C.H.O.I.C.E., a Uniontown nonprofit that builds bridges between a variety of needs and available resources. “Emefa’s a real rock star,” Freear says. “She left and came back home to do this work.” Or Sarah Cole in Greensboro, whose for-profit eatery Abadir’s exists to support her fledgling nonprofit, the Black Belt Food Project, which is using nutrition education to better the region’s health outcomes.
A third-generation Black farmer, Christopher Joe raises Black Angus cattle with his father on the family’s 200 acres. He’s also a district conservationist with the Natural Resources Conservation Service, an agency under the USDA. “Farming is hard to do today full time. It’s almost impossible to cover the costs without another job,” he says. His dad was a schoolteacher for years to help fund the farm. Christopher’s love of the land and desire to help keep it in the family drove the formation of his bird-watching business.
“He’s changing the narrative about what this region is and can be,” Freear says. “He’s one of many with deep roots who love where they came from and are contributing to its future.”
Despite the challenges in farming and other issues in the region, letting go of the farm has never been an option for the Joes. But now, Christopher has given so many others a reason to hold on to this place, too.
Family ties pull strong among the Joes; they’ve all shown up to help with the festival. In addition to his dad, Christopher’s wife and young daughter, his two brothers, his sister, and his sisters-in-law are on site, manning the registration table and handing out name tags. When Christopher’s nieces and nephews aren’t goofing off on the walkie-talkies, they’re helping notify the Joe team about latecomers who need a ride to the pasture and, every now and then, sounding the alert on a “cool bird” en route.
Leola Joe, family matriarch, leaves no question as to her role. “Read it,” she says, turning around to show “Mama Joe” printed on the back of her Joe Farm-branded T-shirt. She’s keeping folks fed and hydrated, handing out snacks. “Eat, and drink your water!” she admonishes, dropping plump ripe strawberries into outstretched hands.
“Knowing that people come from all over to see what we have done on family land as a family and that they see value in what we’re doing is rewarding,” Leola says. “It makes me feel like I am making the most of this land and my family legacy.
“We are down here in the Black Belt, and we’ve got people from all over the U.S. coming to see us; that’s something,” Leola continues. “But seeing my kids and even my grandkids all together, helping each other, that’s special. They’ve been tight since childhood.”
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