After the dissolution of the tribal government of the Cherokee Nation in the 1900s and the death of William Charles Rogers in 1917, the Federal government began to appoint chiefs to the Cherokee Nation in 1919.
At the same time, the share of the population in the nationâs urban areas increased from 70% to 81% over that 50-year period. And much of the South still struggles with poverty. Of the 16 Southern states, only Maryland and Delaware had a poverty rate below the national average in 1960. Among the 14 Southern states with poverty rates higher than the U.S. average that year, only Virginiaâs had dropped below the national mark by 2010. Over the past 50 years, the poor have increasingly lived in the 20 most populous counties.
Southern States Have Highest Obesity Rate. A recent report from the US Centers for Disease Control says that 12 states now have adult obesity rates of 30 percent or higher. Seven of those states are in the South. The CDC data are from the Behavior Risk Factor Surveillance System, 2010 phone survey of 400,000 US adults.