As transition teams begin to work to introduce the new voter-approved constitutional government into office in January, it is important these incoming state officials do not forget the Black Belt.

Partisan politics placed most of those newly elected into positions of power. From its agrarian past, the Black Belt has generally been a bastion of the Democratic Party and likely will remain that way.

This is no time for Republicans to play avenger and force the Black Belt into a position of submission by ignoring the region.

The Black Belt has hard workers living in its counties, who would like to be productive, but high unemployment — the lack of jobs because of a lack of industry — prevents many of them from doing so.

Many of the children of the Black Belt are born already at a disadvantage for finishing high school because many of them live below the poverty level.

For example, the 2008 census update shows 30 percent of those living in Dallas County live below the official poverty threshold of $21,200 for a family of four.

Educational studies have shown poor children are more likely to do poorly on indices of school achievement; twice as likely to have repeated a grade, been expelled or suspended from or dropped out of school.

If the Republican leadership in Alabama continues its practice of creating commissions and study groups with no real substantive outcome, the people of the Black Belt will continue to struggle. The region will suffer.

It would be in the Republican leadership’s best interest to invest in the Black Belt — its people, its industrial parks, its educational facilities and its infrastructure — to bring the region up to the level of others in the state.