Stephens 1

Chauncey Stephens
May 10, 2013
Honors 2013 Section 6
Final Draft, Essay 1
The Roots of Poverty in Louisiana
East Baton Rouge (South)-West Baton Rouge, with a population that is 70 percent
Caucasian and 23 percent African American, is the number one area on Louisianas Human
Development Index. Just a few blocks away, East Baton Rouge (North and Central) ranks last on
the Louisianas Human Development Index. There the population is 9 percent Caucasian and 88
percent African American (Burd-Sharps, Lewis, and Martins 19). As exemplified in East Baton
Rouge Parish, there is a strong correlation between poor human development, which indicates
poverty, and race. In Louisiana, the African American population is severely plagued by
poverty; forty-five percent of African Americans are impoverished, while only seventeen percent
of Caucasians are impoverished (Kaiser Family Foundation). The roots of poverty experienced
by African Americans are deeply embedded in Louisianas history of racial discrimination, the
structural forces within schools and the workforce that perpetuate racial inequalities, and the
subculture of poverty that evolved from centuries of oppression that inhibits impoverished
African Americans ability to assimilate into the culture of the middle class.
Racial discrimination is a defining characteristic of life throughout the history of the
South, which perpetually labeled African Americans as inferior effectively entrapping them and
their descendants in poverty. Though discrimination is no longer legally executed, today it
persists economically and socially creating the same impoverished outcomes for African
Americans that were experienced by their ancestors. Racial discrimination began with slavery at

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the onset of the colonial period in the sixteenth century and continued throughout the nineteenth
century south of the Mason Dixon line. In Louisiana, an agrarian economy supported the
importation, selling, breeding, and horrendous living conditions of slaves (Seccombe 84).
African Americans were limited to either working in the fields or fulfilling service jobs on
plantations. Even after slaves were emancipated, African Americans remained on the bottom
rung of the social order. Sharecropping took the place of slavery, exploiting uneducated African
Americans and undergirding black poverty in Louisiana.
After the Civil War, during Reconstruction in the South, the implementation of black
codes reinstated the antebellum south social order. Although the Fourteenth and Fifteenth
Amendments granted African Americans the right to vote, policies were enforced to deliberately
stifle their ability to participate in the political process. This systematic exclusion was
exacerbated through the implementation of Jim Crow Laws, which institutionalized social
segregation. The Supreme Court decision to uphold Louisiana law in Plessy v. Ferguson
initiated the era of separate but equal. Following the Civil Rights Movement, legislation was
passed that granted equality for people of color; however, white supremacy was still strong,
and racism was far from being erased. Although legal discrimination and segregation were
abolished, economic and social segregation evolved isolating Louisianas African Americans
from the rest of society and cementing their position in the bottom of Americas distribution of
income and wealth. Moreover, racial inequalities that originated during the 16th century became
permanent parts of the historical context of poverty, ones that still have an impact on the
impoverished African American community today, especially in Louisiana.
Structural forces in education and the job market perpetuate the racial inequalities that
plague African Americans and trap them in poverty. The impact of poverty on educational

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attainment is detrimental to future employment outcomes. Impoverished children are put at a
major disadvantage at a young age, which hinders their success in school and later in life. The
amount of instability commonly associated with homes of lower socioeconomic status is
disruptive to the cultivation of executive function skills. Lack of stimulating resources both at
home and in under-funded schools further contributes to inadequate development of executive
function in impoverished students. According to Harvard Universitys Center on the Developing
Child, children who experience adversity at an early age are more likely to exhibit deficits in
executive functioning (7). Without the cognitive and social skill building blocks in place,
children immensely struggle academically in areas such as literacy and mathematics. For
instance, in 2011, eight-six percent of Louisianas fourth grade students who were eligible for
free and reduced lunch scored below proficient reading level (The Annie E. Casey Foundation).
Ultimately, impoverished African American students leave school without the skills necessary to
obtain employment that provides an income sufficient enough to lift them out of poverty.
Furthermore, the low-skilled workers are limited to low-income service sector jobs due to their
lack of qualifications and abilities, funneling them back into the intergenerational cycle of
poverty.
Changes that negatively impacted the low-skill job market and isolated the impoverished
in both urban and rural areas have exacerbated the plight of impoverished African Americans.
The movement towards internationalization and increased use of technology have contributed to
the growing threat of job displacement and eroding wages for unskilled workers (Wilson 7). In
addition, physical separation from employment opportunities has had deleterious effects on the
poor that rely on jobs within their communities. Louisianas rural poverty became further
isolated from employment opportunities due to the mechanization of agriculture. Increased use

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of machinery eliminated the need for manual labor thus depleting the African American job
market and leaving unskilled workers unemployed, homeless, and isolated from other
opportunities for low-skilled labor (Cass 10). Today, many impoverished people in rural areas
live miles away from any employment prospects and resources for assistance, not to mention
lack means of public and private transportation to travel to the closest city or suburb where more
opportunities are available. Quite literally, they and their children are stuck, not due to lack of
effort but separation from resources.
Inner-city ghettos developed when the middle class fled the urban areas in a movement
called suburbanization. This created concentrated areas of poverty that are physically isolated
from employment opportunities, which are located in suburban areas, a concept identified as job
spatial mismatch (Wilson 10). As a result, people living in urban inner-city of concentrated
poverty are left with few service sector jobs that are low paying, lack fringe benefits, limit work
hours, and favor women with soft skills over mena recipe for failure and continued
impoverishment.
In response to the persistent oppression blacks have faced throughout Louisianas history
and the structural forces that limit their socioeconomic mobility, a subculture of poverty has
evolved, making it difficult for impoverished blacks to assimilate into the culture of the middle
class. These cultural adaptations eternalize poverty because they create a greater distinction
between the realm in which the middle class live and the realm of survival of the poor. The
code of the street described by Elijah Anderson is based upon earning respect in the
neighborhood and is often adapted in order to achieve self-actualization or to provide selfdefense on the violent streets of impoverished areas (Wilson 18). Youth have no choice but to
abide by the code of street in order to survive in inner-city ghettos where there is a lack of faith

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in authority figures. This becomes problematic when they enter institutionalized settings such as
school, where they are expected to abide by the rules enforced by their teachers and
administrators. In impoverished neighborhoods, where crime is often rampant, residents adapt
street smarts, which include avoiding eye-contact and keeping to oneself, as a method of selfdefense (Wilson 17). Potential employers are turned off by these behaviors, making it difficult
for African Americans who live in neighborhoods with concentrated poverty to obtain jobs that
could benefit their socioeconomic status.
The roots of poverty within the state of Louisiana are strongly connected to the African
American plight, which has resulted in almost half of the African American population living in
poverty today. Throughout Louisianas history, African Americans have been the victims of
discrimination, constantly fighting the battle of oppression that began when slavery was a
common practice. Although legislation made explicit discrimination illegal, racial inequalities
pervaded throughout life in Louisiana through the evolution of structural forces within schools
and the job market. Without a quality education, poor African Americans left school lacking the
capabilities to perform skilled labor, forcing them into low-income, service sector jobs. Job
spatial mismatch separated the poor from the jobs they desperately needed. As an adaptation to
years of oppression and economic struggle, a subculture of poverty developed making it difficult
for poor African Americans to assimilate into the culture of the middle class, perpetuating the
generational cycle of poverty.

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Works Cited
"Building the Brain's "Air Traffic Control" System: How Early Experiences Shape the
Development of Executive Function." Working Paper #11: Center on the Developing
Child. Harvard University. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Mar. 2013.
Burd-Sharps, Sarah, Kristen Lewis, and Eduardo Borges Martins. A Portrait of Louisiana.
American Human Development Project of the Social Science Research Council, 2009.
Print.
Cass, Julia. Held Captive: Child Poverty In America. Washington D.C.: Childrens Defense
Fund, 2010. Print.
Poverty Rate by Race/Ethnicity. The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Family
Foundation, 2013. Web. 4 May 2013.
Profile for Louisiana. The Annie E. Casey Foundation. U.S. Department of Education,
National Center for Education Statistics, 2011. Web. 4 May 2013.
Seccombe, Karen. Families in Poverty. Ed. Susan J. Ferguson. New York: Pearson Education,
Inc., 2007. Print.
Wilson, William. More Than Just Race. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2009. Print.