page_title: Deep South
section_title: Usage
hierarchical_section_title: Deep South / Usage
caption_attribution_description: Southern US counties that were at least 40% Black or African American in the 2000 Census.
context_page_description: The Deep South is a cultural and geographic subregion in the Southern United States. It was, historically, differentiated as those states most dependent on plantations and slave societies during the pre-Civil War period. It suffered economic ruin after the war, and has been a major site of racial tension following the end of Reconstruction and the adoption of Jim Crow laws. The Civil Rights Movement ushered in a new era, sometimes referred to as the New South. Before 1945, the Deep South was often referred to as the Cotton States, since cotton was the primary cash crop.
context_section_description: The term "Deep South" is defined in a variety of ways:
  Most definitions include the states Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, Mississippi, and Louisiana.
  Texas and Florida are sometimes included, due to being peripheral states, having coastlines with the Gulf of Mexico, their history of slavery and as being part of the historical Confederate States of America. The eastern part of Texas is the westernmost extension of the Deep South while North Florida is also a part of the Deep South region, typically that area north of Ocala.
  Arkansas is sometimes included or else considered "in the Peripheral or Rim South rather than the Deep South."
  The seven states that seceded from the United States before the firing on Fort Sumter and the start of the American Civil War, and who originally formed the Confederate States of America. In order of secession, they are South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. The first six states to secede were those that held the largest number of slaves.  Ultimately the Confederacy included eleven states.
  A large part of the original "Cotton Belt". This was considered to extend from eastern North Carolina to South Carolina and through the Gulf States as far west as East Texas, and including those parts of western Tennessee and eastern Arkansas in the Mississippi embayment. Some of this is coterminous with the Black Belt, a term used for much of the Cotton Belt, which had a high percentage of African-American slave labor.
  Studies of the Civil Rights Movement often highlight the region. Thus in 2012  political scientist Seth McKee concluded that in the 1964 presidential election, "Once again, the high level of support for Goldwater in the Deep South, and especially their Black Belt counties, spoke to the enduring significance of white resistance to black progress."
caption: Southern Black Belt counties with an African-American population 40% or higher.
exif: {}