Rural America is a diverse and dynamic place, home to innovative entrepreneurs, resourceful leaders, and connected communities. Yet the 60 million rural Americans and the towns they live in — many of which had yet to recover from the economic pain of the Great Recession — continue to face an urgent, existential threat from the COVID-19 pandemic. To ensure small towns can recover, funders and policymakers must aggressively pilot innovative solutions, with an eye towards scaling successes across similar regions, that help build a new paradigm for geographically inclusive growth.

Unfortunately, there are significant barriers standing in the way of this rural resurgence, driven in no small part by common misconceptions about rural America: that small towns are all white, cannot be home to technological innovation, are not places where limited recovery resources can be used efficiently.

These misleading narratives obscure the incredible assets found in rural America. Only when we start recognizing these assets can we build on their success to create a real rural renaissance that will ensure geographic economic equity in our country. Our organizations are working each day to do this. But fully unlocking the promise of rural America will require that we challenge these limiting misconceptions, and assemble a large group of like-minded leaders who are equally committed to this work.

Rural Black Americans had the highest poverty rates of all racial and geographic groups in 2017. Police shootings are high in rural places, and incarceration rates have deep racial disparities. Yet rural places also showed up for racial justice in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, often led by activists of color who prompted widespread local engagement for the first time. These examples show that inclusivity efforts in rural places play a critical role in advancing racial equity for everyone, everywhere.

Read the full article about resurgence in rural America by Matt Dunne and Katy Knight at The Hill.