School racial and economic segregation trends in the United States have increased since the high point of school integration in the 1980s. Current scholarship rarely examines segregation trends in rural areas, especially in the rural Black Belt region of the southern United States. The Black Belt was the location of the leading events of the Civil Rights Movement and where white residents exhibited overt and violent resistance to Brown v. Board of Education. This landmark 1954 U.S. Supreme Court case prohibited legally mandated racial segregation in schools. Our study examines patterns of racial and economic isolation and dissimilarity in the Alabama Black Belt to determine the contemporary nature of school and neighborhood segregation in the region. We use a Critical Race Spatial Analysis framework to conceptualize the study, and we show that segregation patterns have continued and, in some cases, worsened in the last three decades. The forces driving these patterns are different from in the past, stemming from student population changes rather than students' distribution within school districts. Based on these findings, we explain solutions that include implementing school enrollment policy changes alongside policies that incentivize population growth and economic development.

中文翻译：

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现在隔离，明天隔离，永远隔离？阿拉巴马州农村黑带学校的种族和经济隔离与差异*

自 1980 年代学校融合的高峰以来，美国的学校种族和经济隔离趋势有所增加。当前的学术研究很少考察农村地区的种族隔离趋势，尤其是美国南部的农村黑带地区。黑带是民权运动主要事件的发生地，白人居民在那里对布朗诉教育委员会表现出公开和暴力的抵抗. 这一具有里程碑意义的 1954 年美国最高法院案件禁止在学校进行法律规定的种族隔离。我们的研究调查了阿拉巴马州黑带的种族和经济隔离和差异模式，以确定该地区学校和社区隔离的当代性质。我们使用临界种族空间分析框架来概念化研究，我们表明隔离模式在过去三年中一直在继续，并且在某些情况下恶化。推动这些模式的力量与过去不同，源于学生人数的变化，而不是学生在学区内的分布。基于这些发现，我们解释了解决方案，包括实施入学政策变化以及激励人口增长和经济发展的政策。