A colleague just sent us a link to a post on the Strange Maps blog that juxtaposes a 2008 presidential electoral map (by county) and an 1860 map of cotton production. The comparison reveals a correlation between the production of cotton in the antebellum South and counties that voted for the Democratic candidate. The obvious conclusion is that a higher concentration of African Americans would have lived in cotton producing regions, and that they continue to live in those same areas in high numbers today.
It turns out that the comparison was originally made by Allen Gathman a professor in Biology at Southeast Missouri State University. The Vigorous North Blog (A Field Guide to Inner-City Wilderness Areas) followed up on Gathman's comparison, noting the geological origins of the soil that made certain areas better for cotton growing.
Obviously this conclusion would have been made easier with simple census surveys, but this particular juxtaposition makes visible the combined narratives of geology, slavery and the contemporary intersection of race and space that the census does not take into consideration.
As our friend remarked when pointing us to the link, a larger question may be one of mobility.
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