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Abstract:The religious landscape of the South has long been dominated by a small number of evangelical Protestant denominations, most particularly the Baptists and Methodists. But the region has experienced a tremendous rate of in-migration from both inside and outside the United States in recent decades. Have these in-migrants altered the South's traditional geographic patterns of religious denomination affiliation? The central purpose of this study is to examine Georgia's denominational landscape between 1970 and 1990 to determine if changes have occurred, and are likely to continue in coming decades. The study's primary focus is upon seven denominations including Southern Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Catholics, Mormons, and Pentecostals. Among its findings are that Southern Baptists and Methodists are slowly declining in their proportion of the state's population, most particularly in the state's metropolitan areas. In contrast, Catholics are rapidly increasing in the state's urban areas, and both Mormons and Pentecostals are growing very rapidly in a diverse set of rural and urban locations.

Abstract:The term "Black Belt" has been in use in Alabama for over a century. While there is general recognition of where the core of the state's Black Belt is located in central and west-central Alabama, there is little agreement on the region's geographic extent for its being so named. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the origin and historic progression of changing definitions of the Alabama Black Belt. This paper concludes that the term Black Belt was first applied to Alabama in the late 19th century with respect to the physical, most often soil, characteristics of the region. By the early 20th century the term was also commonly associated with the region's large African-American population. By the mid-20th century the term Black Belt was frequently employed with respect to the region's people, soil, and culture.

Abstract:In the 50 years since the founding of SEDAAG there has been marked political change in the South. In this article, we examine one aspect of change in southern politics—the election of women and African Americans to public office. Historically excluded from political power in the South, these two groups are in many ways highly indicative of the consequences of the changing politics of the region. This aspect of the changing South is examined through a historical summary of the success over time of African Americans and women in gaining access to political office in the region. We conclude that while recent increases in the levels of black representation in the region have been impressive (albeit thanks to federal pressure), the South continues to lag behind the rest of the country in electing women to public office.

Abstract:The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the results of redistricting in nine southeastern states from the perspective of six criteria: equal population, minority representation, equal treatment of political parties, representation responsiveness, the division of local political entities, and compactness/contiguity. This paper finds that the equal population and minority representation criteria were substantially satisfied. The goals of the remaining four criteria were less satisfactorily met, particularly the division of local governments and compactness/contiguity criteria which were largely ignored.

The economy of the Socialist Republic of Cuba has suffered greatly due to decreases in aid from the Soviet Union. In an effort to improve economic conditions, Cuba is attempting to rebuild its tourist industry, one of the more capitalist export sectors of their economy. This is a skeletal outline of Cuban economic history and a discussion of the island' s attempts to become a tourist mecca. Included is a review of source materials on Cuba with suggestions for classroom use.