Emelle is a small town in rural Sumter County, Alabama. The town is located at the intersection of Alabama highway 17 and county road 24 approximately 65 miles southwest of Tuscaloosa Alabama and 45 miles northeast of Meridian Mississippi. Emelle is located in the heart of the Black Belt region in western Alabama. The region is called the Black Belt because of its black soil and because it was the center of Alabama’s cotton plantation economy before the Civil War. Sumter County was the major population center in the state of Alabamain the late 19th century.