This area is considered part of the Black Belt, upland areas across the Deep South that were developed in the 19th century as plantations after invention of the cotton gin made processing of short-staple cotton profitable.

Enslaved Blacks made up the vast majority of workers on the plantations, with hundreds of thousands being transported through the domestic slave trade from the coast and Upper South.

Like other areas of the rural South, workers in Randolph County lost jobs due to mechanization, invasion of the boll weevil, and the decline in agriculture.

In the 20th century, many black families moved from the county to cities in the North and Midwest for work and less oppressive conditions during the Great Migration.

[citation needed] Health department records showed an infection rate of 1.9 for every 100 citizens in Randolph County.

The northwestern portion of the county, from just south of Cuthbert north, is located in the Middle Chattahoochee River–Walter F. George Lake sub-basin of the same ACF River Basin.