While the county’s more than 366,000 residents largely identify as White and about 7.4% identified as Hispanic or Latino in the 2020 Census, their presence has pushed a community with a dark racial history to face the inequalities that persist and adapt to a new normal that goes beyond the fractured Black-White paradigm that has characterized the South for a long time.
Although there are ongoing efforts by the city and school officials to better serve Latino families, the demographic shift has also come with reminders of how heavily divided this region is and the fact that many Latinos live afraid of authorities because of their current or past immigration status.
