A journalist coined ‘the Bible Belt’ 100 years ago – it’s been oversimplifying the South ever since

A historian traces the phrase 'Bible Belt' back to H.L. Mencken's 1924 coinage, when it described a Baptist-Methodist grip on Southern culture and politics. The piece argues that even then the label ignored the separate, autonomous world of Black churches and the divisions of race and class beneath the shared denominations.

The South Mencken described was also shaped by disenfranchisement: poll taxes and literacy tests kept Black and poor white Southerners from the ballot box, so the 'Bible Belt' order reflected elite and middle-class white culture with the power to enforce it. Other old nicknames like the 'Cotton Belt' and 'Solid South' have faded as the region urbanized and diversified, but 'Bible Belt' persists in headlines despite the South's population now being under 53% white and increasingly Black, Latino and biracial.

The argument closes on the point that white Baptist and Methodist institutions have been shrinking for decades, even as pundits keep reaching for the century-old label every election season.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.