In this conceptual article, we posit that Black life matters in the Black Belt of the American South. We connect two current trends in rural educational research--a return to questions of place and sincere attention to race as a crucial conversation in the field--and provide readers with an introduction to Black Geography as a means to inform rural education research. By offering this theoretical lens, we hope to build capacity in the field to take on inquiries related to spatial and educational equity issues related to race in rural education. Taking our queues from McKittrick, we present four areas as lines of inquiry for rural educational research: (a) interrogating quantitative research designs, (b) creating critical topographies of local geography and history, (c) mapping education policy and implementation, and (d) collecting stories about the educational debt owed to Black students. We invite rural educational scholars to consider concepts from Black Geography and employ these lines of inquiry in order to ask better research questions, strengthen research designs, and enhance the contributions drawn from research findings. We view these lines of inquiry as holding the potential for humanizing rural educational spaces by centering Black livingness within the Black Belt.