Blackbelt River Region

Region Overview

Alabama’s Blackbelt River stretches across from Western Alabama, through the center, and to the Eastern border of Alabama. The Blackbelt River region of Central Alabama is made up of Perry, Dallas, Autauga, Lowndes, Coosa, Elmore, Montgomery, Tallapoosa, Macon, Bullock, Chambers, Lee, and Russell counties.

The indigenous groups that first occupied the Blackbelt River region were the Poarch Creek, Choctaw, and Cherokee Indians in the 17th century and flourished in Montgomery County. As the Creek population grew, so did the number of settlers which waged a war between the Creeks and the United States militia. This ended in the Creek Indians giving up much of their homeland to the U.S. government.

The Blackbelt River region contains rural areas known for their land, waterways, black soil, and history leaving people overwhelmed by its natural beauty. The history within the Blackbelt River region is especially impactful due to the capital, Montgomery, Alabama being a part of this region and the second largest city in the state of Alabama. This region played a big part in the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s with landmarks where visitors can walk through this course of history at places like the Selma-to-Montgomery Trail Interpretive Center Museum and the King Memorial Baptist Church.

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Make Sum'n Shake with Organizations in This Region

Blackbelt River Region Organizations

The ACLU of Alabama works in the courts, legislatures and communities to defend the individual rights and personal freedoms guaranteed to us by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Click here to visit their website.

Alabama NAACP strives to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate race-based discrimination. Click here to visit their website.

Alabama Rivers Alliance is a statewide network of groups working to protect and restore all of Alabama’s water resources through building partnerships, empowering citizens, and advocating for sound water policy and its enforcement. Click here to visit their website.

A multifaith, multiracial community organizing organization that works to honor God by dismantling systemic racism to create pathways of opportunity for all Alabamians. Click here to visit their website.

The Human Rights Campaign strives to end discrimination against LGBTQ people and realize a world that achieves fundamental fairness and equality for all. Click here to visit their website.

Planned Parenthood Southeast provides comprehensive reproductive and complementary health care services in settings which preserve and protect the essential privacy and rights of each individual and advocates for public policies that guarantee these rights and ensure access to such services. Click here to visit their website.

The SPLC is a catalyst for racial justice in the South and beyond, working in partnership with communities to dismantle white supremacy, strengthen intersectional movements, and advance the human rights of all people. Click here to visit their website.

Alabama Arise is a statewide non-profit, nonpartisan coalition of congregations, organziations, and individuals that join together to promote policies to improve the lives of Alabamians with low incomes. Click here to visit their website.

The Alabama Poor People’s Campaign is one state affiliate that relaunched MLK Jr.’s movement of 1968 to confront systemic racism, poverty ecological devastation, militarism and the war economy, and the distorted moral narrative of religious nationalism. The organization works to build lasting power for poor and impacted people. Click here to visit their website.

Black Voters Matter strives to increase power in marginalized, predominately Black communities because effective voting allows a community to determine its own destiny. Click here to visit their website.

The Hometown Organizing Project is a group of small town, rural, and working class Alabamians that build inclusive and sustainable communities where everyone can thrive. Click here to visit their website.

Jobs to Move America is a strategic policy center that works to transform public spending and corporate behavior using a comprehensive approach that is rooted in racial and economic justice and community organizing. Click here to visit their website.

In 2016, The Montgomery (AL) Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., began expanding its organizing efforts with a CALL TO ACTION to fellow organizations and churches. By implementing the Rollin to the Polls (RTTP) Voting Initiative, goals were created to push GOTV efforts by increasing community engagement through voter registration, voting rights restoration, voter education, Election-Day services, and mobilization. Click here to visit their website.

TOPS provides support and advocacy to those impacted by the criminal justice system and works with the most impacted people to provide support services for those in the shadows of society and to those who suffer the consequences of generational poverty. Click here to visit their website.