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Sundown town

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Sundown towns, also known as sunset towns, gray towns, or sundowner towns, were all-white municipalities or neighborhoods in the United States. They were towns that practice a form of racial segregation by excluding non-whites via some combination of discriminatory local laws, intimidation or violence. They were most prevalent before the 1950s. The term came into use because of signs that directed "colored people" to leave town by sundown.[1]

Sundown counties[2] and sundown suburbs were created as well. While the number of sundown towns in the United States decreased following the end of the civil rights movement in 1968, some commentators hold that certain 21st-century practices perpetuate a modified version[further explanation needed] of the sundown town.[3][4]

Discriminatory policies and actions distinguish sundown towns from towns that have no Black residents for demographic reasons. Historically, towns have been confirmed as sundown towns by newspaper articles, county histories, and Works Progress Administration files; this information has been corroborated by tax or U.S. census records showing an absence of Black people or a sharp drop in the Black population between two censuses.[5][2][6]

History

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The earliest legal restrictions on the nighttime activities and movements of African Americans and other racial minorities date back to the colonial era. The general court and legislative assembly of New Hampshire passed "An Act to Prevent Disorders in the Night" in 1714:[7][8]

Whereas great disorders, insolencies and burglaries are oft times raised and committed in the night time by Indian, Negro, and Molatto Servants and Slaves to the Disquiet and hurt of her Majesty's subjects, No Indian, Negro, or Molatto is to be from Home after 9 o'clock.

Notices emphasizing and re-affirming the curfew were published in The New Hampshire Gazette in 1764 and 1771.[7] Following the American Revolution, Virginia was the first state to prohibit the entry of all Free Negros.[9] According to historian Kate Masur, American laws restricting where Black people could live drew inspiration from the English Poor Laws, which were implemented in the Kingdom of England during the Tudor period to restrict the movements of England's poor. These laws, which were implemented to ensure that municipal authorities were under no legal obligation to care for vagrants, proved to be a source of inspiration for American officials who aimed to prevent Black Americans from settling in their communities.[9]

Following the end of the Reconstruction era, thousands of towns and counties across the United States became sundown localities, as part of the imposition of Jim Crow laws and other segregationist practices. In most cases, the exclusion was official town policy or was promulgated by the community's real estate agents via exclusionary covenants governing who could buy or rent property. In others, the policy was enforced through intimidation. This intimidation could occur in several ways, including harassment by law enforcement officers.[10] Though no sundown towns exist today in the sense of publicly or legally excluding non-white residents, some commentators have applied the term to towns practicing other forms of racial exclusion.[4]

In 1844, Oregon, which had banned slavery, banned African Americans from the territory altogether. Those who failed to leave were liable to receive lashings under a law known as the "Peter Burnett Lash Law", named for Provisional Supreme Judge Peter Burnett. No persons were ever lashed under the law; it was quickly amended to replace lashing with forced labor, and eventually repealed the following year after a change in the makeup of the legislature.[11][12] However, additional laws aimed at African Americans entering Oregon were ratified in 1849 and 1857, the last of which was not repealed until 1926.[13][14][15]

Outside Oregon, other places looked to laws and legislation to restrict Black people from residing within cities, towns and states.[16] In 1853, new black residents were banned from moving to the state of Illinois. Those new residents who remained more than ten days and were unable to pay the fine were to be punished by forced labor. Although this law faced significant resistance, especially in Illinois' small black community, it was not repealed until the end of the Civil War in 1865.[17] Similar bans on all black migration were passed in Michigan, Ohio and Iowa.[18]

New laws were enacted in the 20th century. One example is Louisville, Kentucky, whose mayor proposed a law in 1911 that would restrict Black people from owning property in certain parts of the city.[19] This city ordinance reached public attention when it was challenged in the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Buchanan v. Warley in 1917. Ultimately, the court decided that the laws passed in Louisville were unconstitutional, thus setting the legal precedent that similar laws could not exist or be passed in the future.[19] However, this outcome did not stop towns from excluding black residents. Some city planners and real estate companies exercised their private authority to uphold racial segregation at the community level.[20] In addition to discriminatory housing rules, violence and harassment were sometimes used by locals to discourage Black people from remaining in their cities after sundown.[21] Whites in the North were threatened by the increased minority populations moving into their neighborhoods, and racial tensions started to build. Interracial violence became more common, sometimes escalating to race riots.

After the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, and especially since the Fair Housing Act of 1968 prohibition of racial discrimination in the sale, rental and financing of housing, sundown towns gradually disappeared, with de facto sundown towns existing into the 1980s.[22] However, as sociologist James W. Loewen wrote in his 2005 book, Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism, it is impossible to count precisely the number of sundown towns at any given time because most towns have not kept records of the ordinances or signs that marked the town's sundown status. He further noted that hundreds of cities across America have been sundown towns at some point in their history.[23]

Additionally, Loewen wrote that sundown status meant more than just African Americans being unable to live in those towns. Any Black people who entered or were found in sundown towns after sunset were subject to harassment, threats and violence, including lynching.[23]

The U.S. Supreme Court case of Brown v. Board of Education declared segregation of schools unconstitutional in 1954. Loewen speculates that the case caused some municipalities in the South to become sundown towns: Missouri, Tennessee and Kentucky saw drastic drops in African-American populations living in those states following the decision.[2]

In 2019, sociologist Heather O'Connell wrote that sundown towns are "(primarily) a thing of the past".[24] However, historian James W. Loewen notes persisting effects of sundown towns' violently enforced segregation even after they may have been integrated to a small degree, a phenomenon he called "second-generation sundown towns."[3]

Function

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Ethnic exclusions

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African Americans were not the only minority group not allowed to live in white towns. One example, according to Loewen, is that, in 1870, Chinese people made up one-third of Idaho's population. Following a wave of violence and an 1886 anti-Chinese convention in Boise, almost none remained by 1910.[23]: 51 

The towns of Minden and Gardnerville in Nevada had an ordinance from 1917 to 1974 that required Native Americans to leave the towns by 6:30 p.m. each day.[25] A whistle, later a siren, was sounded at 6 p.m. daily, alerting Native Americans to leave by sundown.[23]: 23 [25] In 2021, the state of Nevada passed a law prohibiting the appropriation of Native American imagery by the mascots of schools, and the sounding of sirens that were once associated with sundown ordinances. Despite this law, Minden continued to play its siren for two more years, claiming that it was a nightly tribute to first responders.[26][27][28][29] An additional state law in 2023 led Minden to end the siren.[30]

Two examples of the road signs documented during the first half of the 20th century include:[31]

  • In Colorado: "No Mexicans After Night"
  • In Connecticut: "Whites Only Within City Limits After Dark"

In her 2011 article "Preemption, Patchwork Immigration Laws, and the Potential for Brown Sundown Towns" in the Fordham Law Review, Maria Marulanda outlines the possibility for non-blacks to be excluded from towns in the United States. She argues that immigration laws and ordinances in certain municipalities could create situations similar to those experienced by African Americans in sundown towns. Hispanic Americans are likely to suffer, despite the purported target being undocumented immigrants, in these cases of racial exclusion.[32]

From 1851 to at least 1876, Antioch, California, had a sundown ordinance that barred Chinese residents from being out in public after dark.[33] In 1876, white residents drove the Chinese out of town and then burned down the Chinatown section of the city.[33]

Chinese Americans were also excluded from most of San Francisco, leading to the establishment of Chinatown.[34][35]

Travel guides

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1940 edition of The Negro Motorist Green Book

Described by former NAACP President Julian Bond as "one of the survival tools of segregated life",[36] The Negro Motorist Green Book (at times titled The Negro Traveler's Green Book or The Negro Motorist Green-Book, and commonly referred to simply as the "Green Book") was an annual segregation-era guidebook for African American motorists, published by New York travel agent and former Hackensack, New Jersey, letter carrier Victor H. Green.[36] It was published in the United States from 1936 to 1966, during the Jim Crow era, when discrimination against non-whites was widespread.[37][38]

Road trips for African Americans were inconvenient and in some cases dangerous because of racial segregation, racial profiling by police, the phenomenon of travelers just "disappearing"[further explanation needed][citation needed], and the existence of numerous sundown towns. According to author Kate Kelly, "there were at least 10,000 'sundown towns' in the United States as late as the 1960s; in a 'sundown town' nonwhites had to leave the city limits by dusk, or they could be picked up by the police or worse. These towns were not limited to the South—they ranged from Levittown, New York, to Glendale, California,[39] and included the majority of municipalities in Illinois." The Green Book also advised drivers to wear, or have ready, a chauffeur's cap and, if stopped, relate that "they were delivering a car for a white person."[36]

On June 7, 2017, the NAACP issued a warning to prospective African-American travelers to Missouri. This is the first NAACP warning ever covering an entire state.[40] The NAACP conference president suggested that, if prospective African-American travelers must go to Missouri, they travel with bail money in hand.[41]

Sundown suburbs

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Many suburban areas in the United States were incorporated following the establishment of Jim Crow laws. The majority of suburbs were made up of all white residents from the time they were first created. Most sundown suburbs were created between 1906 and 1968. By 1970, at the peak of the Civil Rights era, some sundown suburbs had already begun to desegregate. Harassment and inducements contributed to keeping African Americans out of new suburban areas.[42]

List of sundown towns

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Main article: List of sundown towns in the United States
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See also

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References

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  1. ^ Morgan, Gordon D. (1973). Black Hillbillies of the Arkansas Ozarks. Assistance by Dina Cagle and Linde Harned. Fayetteville, Arkansas: University of Arkansas Department of Sociology. p. 60. OCLC 2509042. Archived from the original on 2021-03-09. Retrieved 2015-09-11 – via Library.UARK.edu.
  2. ^ a b c d e Loewen, James William (2009). "Sundown Towns and Counties: Racial Exclusion in the South". Southern Cultures. 15 (1): 22–44. doi:10.1353/scu.0.0044. S2CID 143592671.
  3. ^ a b Newton, Kamilah (August 25, 2020). "What Are 'Sundown Towns'? Historically All-White Towns in America See Renewed Scrutiny Thanks to 'Lovecraft Country'". Yahoo! News. Archived from the original on 18 May 2021. Retrieved 19 January 2021.
  4. ^ a b Loewen, James William (2006). "Sundown Towns Today". Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism. New York: The New Press. ISBN 9781620974544. Archived from the original on 2024-08-06. Retrieved 2020-08-23. During the last few years while I have been doing the research for this book, many people have asked, after learning that hundreds or thousands of sundown towns and suburbs dot the map of the United States, "Still? Surely it's not like that today?"
  5. ^ Loewen, James William. "Sundown Towns on Stage and Screen". History News Network. Archived from the original on 2021-01-14. Retrieved 2015-12-06.
  6. ^ "Shedding Light on Sundown Towns". ASAnet.org. American Sociological Association. Archived from the original on 2021-02-24. Retrieved 2017-03-16.
  7. ^ a b Sammons, Mark J.; Cunningham, Valerie (2004). Black Portsmouth: Three Centuries of African-American Heritage. Durham, New Hampshire: University of New Hampshire Press. ISBN 9781584652892. LCCN 2004007172. OCLC 845682328. Retrieved 2009-07-27.
  8. ^ Acts and Laws of His Majesty's Province of New Hampshire, in New England: With Sundry Acts of Parliament. Laws, etc. Portsmouth, New Hampshire: Daniel Fowle. 1759. p. 40. Archived from the original on 2021-04-15. Retrieved 2020-10-14.
  9. ^ a b Masur, Kate (2021). Until Justice Be Done: America's First Civil Rights Movement, from the Revolution to Reconstruction. New York: W. W. Norton. pp. 3–7. ISBN 9781324005933. OCLC 1200834282.
  10. ^ Oppenheim, Keith (December 13, 2006). "Texas City Haunted by 'No Blacks After Dark' Past". CNN. Archived from the original on 8 August 2020. Retrieved 22 May 2011.
  11. ^ Brown, DeNeen L. (June 7, 2017). "When Portland Banned Blacks: Oregon's Shameful History As an 'All-White' State". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on May 13, 2021. Retrieved June 7, 2017.
  12. ^ Taylor, Quintard (Summer 1982). "Slaves and Free Men: Blacks in the Oregon Country, 1840–1860". Oregon Historical Society Quarterly (83). Portland, Oregon: Oregon Historical Society: 155.
  13. ^ Mcclintock, Thomas C. (1995). "James Saules, Peter Burnett, and the Oregon Black Exclusion Law of June 1844". The Pacific Northwest Quarterly. 86 (3): 121–130. JSTOR 40491550.
  14. ^ "Black Exclusion Laws in Oregon". oregonencyclopedia.org. Portland State University and Oregon Historical Society. Archived from the original on 8 May 2021. Retrieved 15 August 2017.
  15. ^ Davis, Lenwood G. (1972). "Sources for History of Blacks in Oregon". Oregon Historical Quarterly. 73 (3): 196–211. JSTOR 20613303.
  16. ^ Gotham, Kevin Fox (2000). "Urban Space, Restrictive Covenants and the Origins of Racial Residential Segregation in a US City, 1900–50". International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. 24 (3): 616–633. doi:10.1111/1468-2427.00268.
  17. ^ Bridges, Roger D. "The Black Codes". www.lib.niu.edu. Archived from the original on 2021-08-16. Retrieved 2021-10-29.
  18. ^ "Northern Exclusion of Blacks". slavenorth.com. Archived from the original on 2021-11-06. Retrieved 2021-10-29.
  19. ^ a b Power, Garrett (January 1, 1983). "Apartheid Baltimore Style: The Residential Segregation Ordinances of 1910–1913". Maryland Law Review. 42 (2): 289. Archived from the original on March 7, 2021. Retrieved April 5, 2019.
  20. ^ Gotham, Kevin Fox (2000). "Urban Space, Restrictive Covenants and the Origins of Racial Residential Segregation in a US City, 1900–50". International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. 24 (3). Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley-Blackwell: 616–633. doi:10.1111/1468-2427.00268.
  21. ^ Cook, Lisa; Logan, Trevon; Parman, John (September 2017). "Racial Segregation and Southern Lynching". National Bureau of Economic Research Working Papers. Cambridge, MA: w23813. doi:10.3386/w23813.
  22. ^ Coen, R. (2020, August 23). Sundown Towns. BlackPast.org. Retrieved October 1, 2024, from https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/sundown-towns/
  23. ^ a b c d e f Loewen, James William (2005). Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism. New York: The New Press. p. 218. ISBN 978-1565848870.
  24. ^ O'Connell, Heather A. (3 April 2018). "Historical Shadows: The Links between Sundown Towns and Contemporary Black–White Inequality". Sociology of Race and Ethnicity. 5 (3): 311–325. doi:10.1177/2332649218761979. S2CID 158248806. Archived from the original on 12 October 2020. Retrieved 19 January 2021.
  25. ^ a b Brown, Julie (May 28, 2021). "For the Washoe Tribe of Lake Tahoe, a Sundown Siren Is a 'Living Piece of Historical Trauma'". SFGate. Archived from the original on June 7, 2021. Retrieved May 30, 2021.
  26. ^ "Minden Snubs Tribal-Backed Ban on 'Sundown Sirens' Once Used to Push People of Color out of Town". Reno Gazette Journal. May 3, 2021.
  27. ^ "Bill That May Silence Minden Siren on Governor's Desk". The Record-Courier. May 27, 2021. Archived from the original on June 7, 2021.
  28. ^ "Nevada Passes Law That Bans Racially Discriminatory School Mascots and 'Sundown Sirens'". CNN. June 5, 2021. Archived from the original on June 7, 2021.
  29. ^ DeHaven, James. "Minden Snubs Tribal-Backed Ban on 'Sundown Sirens' Once Used to Push People of Color out of Town". Reno Gazette Journal. Retrieved 2021-11-13.
  30. ^ "Minden Silences Daily Siren After Nevada Passes Bill Forbidding 'Sundown Ordinance' Sounds". Reno Gazette Journal. Archived from the original on 2024-08-06. Retrieved 2024-01-20.
  31. ^ Carlson, Peter (February 21, 2006). "When Signs Said 'Get Out'". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on January 26, 2021. Retrieved October 30, 2017.
  32. ^ Marulanda, Maria (2011). "Preemption, Patchwork Immigration Laws, and the Potential for Brown Sundown Towns". Fordham Law Review. 79: 321. Archived from the original on 2021-03-08. Retrieved 2019-09-02.
  33. ^ a b Dowd, Katie (April 7, 2021). "The Bay Area Town That Drove Out Its Chinese Residents for Nearly 100 Years". SFGate. Archived from the original on May 30, 2021. Retrieved May 30, 2021.
  34. ^ Loewen, James W. (2005). "The Great Retreat". Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism. The New Press. pp. 47–89. ISBN 978-1-59558-674-2. Archived from the original on 2022-11-24. Retrieved 2022-11-24 – via Google Books.
  35. ^ Durham, Joseph T. (Spring 2006). "Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism". Negro Educational Review. 57 (1/2): 137–140. ProQuest 219038563.
  36. ^ a b c Kelly, Kate (March 8, 2014) [January 6, 2014]. "The Green Book: The First Travel Guide for African-Americans Dates to the 1930s". Huffington Post. Archived from the original on July 2, 2017. Retrieved July 26, 2014.
  37. ^ Victor H. Green (2 November 2016). "The Negro Motorist Green-Book". America On the Move. ((United States Travel Bureau)) (1940 ed.). New York. Archived from the original on 26 November 2014. Retrieved 26 July 2014.
  38. ^ Green, Victor H., ed. (1940). The Negro Motorist Green-Book. New York: Victor H. Green & Co. Archived from the original on 2024-08-06. Retrieved 2022-12-10 – via New York Public Library, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
  39. ^ Hill, Zane (2020-09-19). "Council Condemns Glendale's Past Racism". Outlook Newspapers. Outlook Newspapers. Archived from the original on 2021-10-08. Retrieved 8 October 2021.
  40. ^ "Missouri Travel Advisory" (PDF). National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. June 7, 2017. Archived from the original (PDF) on February 25, 2021. Retrieved August 7, 2017.
  41. ^ Coleman, Nancy (August 3, 2017). "NAACP issues Its First Statewide Travel Advisory, for Missouri". CNN. Archived from the original on 2017-10-28..
  42. ^ Loewen, James W. (Spring 2009). "Sundown Towns and Counties: Racial Exclusion in the South". Southern Cultures. 15 (1). University of North Carolina Press: 22–47. doi:10.1353/scu.0.0044. JSTOR 26214270. S2CID 143592671. Archived from the original on 2023-07-31. Retrieved 2023-05-10.
  43. ^ "Sundown Towns on Stage and Screen". History News Network. Archived from the original on 2021-01-14. Retrieved 2017-03-16.
  44. ^ Maya, Angelou (2015). I know why the caged bird sings. Virago. ISBN 978-0349005997. OCLC 962406229.
  45. ^ Henson, Robby (1991). Trouble Behind. Cicada Films. Archived from the original on 2021-05-09. Retrieved 2018-06-30.
  46. ^ "Archives 1991 Sundance Film Festival: Trouble Behind". Sundance Institute. 1991. Archived from the original on 2021-03-04. Retrieved 2016-01-18.
  47. ^ Scheiderer, David (February 17, 1992). "TV Reviews : A Legacy of Racism in 'Trouble Behind'". Archived from the original on 2021-05-20. Retrieved 2016-04-26.
  48. ^ a b Loewen, James William (2011). "Sundown Towns on Stage and Screen". History News Network. Archived from the original on January 14, 2021. Retrieved January 15, 2019.
  49. ^ Williams, Marco (2006). Banished: How Whites Drove Blacks Out of Town in America. Cicada Films. Archived from the original on 2021-03-08. Retrieved 2018-06-30.
  50. ^ Williams, Marco (2006). Banished. Archived from the original on 2021-01-26. Retrieved 2014-02-27.
  51. ^ Jaspin, Elliot (2007). Buried in the Bitter Waters: The Hidden History of Racial Cleansing in America. Basic Books. ISBN 9780465036363.
  52. ^ Maguire, Ellen (February 19, 2008). "PBS's 'Banished' Exposes the Tainted Past of Three White Enclaves". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on November 11, 2012. Retrieved October 30, 2017.
  53. ^ Penrice, Ronda Racha (February 25, 2014). "'Sundown Towns' Under a Spotlight in New Investigation Discovery Documentary". The Grio. Archived from the original on April 10, 2021. Retrieved July 27, 2014.
  54. ^ "Injustice Files: Sundown Towns". Investigation Discovery. February 14, 2014. Archived from the original on March 26, 2016. Retrieved July 27, 2014.
  55. ^ "'Lovecraft Country' Episode 1: Sundown Towns' True Story Has Fans Wondering How Racial Practice 'Still Exists'". meaww.com. 17 August 2020. Archived from the original on 2020-11-29. Retrieved 2020-08-17.
  56. ^ Dwilson, Stephanie Dube (2020-08-17). "Sundown Towns in Real Life: Yes Lovecraft Country's Portrayal Really Happened". Heavy.com. Archived from the original on 2021-05-18. Retrieved 2020-08-17.

Further reading

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