Unequal Lives: The State of Black Women and Families in the Rural South

ALBANY, Ga. — Today, the Southern Rural Black Women’s Initiative (SRBWI) released startling new findings, revealing that on nearly every social indicator of well-being — from income and earnings to obesity and food security — Black women, girls and children in the rural South rank low or last. SRBWI, works in 77 rural counties of the South’s “Black Belt,” some of the most neglected regions in the U.S.

Governors across the South are being pressured to prematurely reopen our states. They need to hear from us that we can hold the complexities of the economy and the life and death health decisions that we have to make in regards to physical distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Agricultural Cooperatives

This groundbreaking report, “We Need Access,” is based on interviews by SRBWI, Human Rights Watch, and nine community-based researchers with Black women living in three rural counties (Baker, Coffee, and Wilcox) in Georgia. The research has found that Georgia state and US federal policies neglect the reproductive healthcare needs of Black women and contribute to an environment in which they are dying of cervical cancer, a highly preventable disease, at disproportionate rates.

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