“Don’t let the sun go down on you in this town.”
By 1970, when sundown towns were at their peak, more than half of all incorporated communities outside the traditional South probably excluded African Americans…..1970!!!
Sundown towns, also known as sunset towns, gray towns, or sundowner towns, are all-white municipalities or neighborhoods in the United States that practice a form of racial segregation by excluding non-whites using some combination of discriminatory local laws, intimidation or violence. The term came from signs posted that “colored people” had to leave town by sundown. Although the term most often refers to the forced exclusion of Blacks, the history of sundown towns also includes prohibitions against Jews, Native Americans, Chinese, Japanese, and other minority groups.
Entire sundown counties and sundown suburbs were also created by the same process. The practice was not restricted to the southern states, with New Jersey and other northern, midwestern and western states being described as equally inhospitable to black travelers until at least the early 1960s.
The difference between Sundown Towns and Towns that had no Black Residents for Demographic Reasons
Discriminatory policies and actions differentiate 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, and validated by tax or U.S. Census records showing an absence of black people or sharp drop in the black population between two censuses.
Although the origins of sundown towns date back to colonial times, they began to flourish in the US just before World War 1. It is difficult to make an accurate count, but historians estimate there were up to 10,000 sundown towns in the United States, starting around 1890 and reaching their peak around 1970, with the majority of these towns in the Mid-West and West. They began to proliferate during the Great Migration, starting in about 1910, when large numbers of African Americans left the South to escape racism and poverty. As Blacks began to migrate to other regions of the country, many predominantly white communities actively discouraged them from settling there.
The means to announce and enforce racial restrictions varied across the country. In its most blatant form, signs were posted at the city limits. One in Alix, Arkansas, in the 1930s, for instance, read, “N—-r, Don’t Let the Sun Go Down On You In Alix.” Others stated, “Whites Only After Dark.” Many sundown towns used discriminatory housing covenants to ensure no non-white person would be allowed to purchase or rent a home. In the 1940s, Edmond, Oklahoma promoted itself on postcards with the slogan, “A Good Place to Live…No Negroes.” The town of Mena, Arkansas advertised its many charms: “Cool Summers, Mild Winters, No Blizzards, No Negroes.”
In other cases, the policy was enforced through less formal norms and sanctions. Businesses that served Black customers or hired Black employees would be boycotted by the white townspeople, ensuring that Blacks had few, if any, job opportunities in those communities.
Racial exclusion in sundown towns was also achieved with violence. African Americans who lingered in sundown towns even during the daytime experienced harassment, threats, arrest, and beatings. It was not uncommon for Black motorists passing through these communities to be followed by police or local residents to the city limits. In extreme cases, hostility toward African Americans resulted in extrajudicial killing. The lynching of two Black teenagers in Marion, Indiana, in 1930, for instance, resulted in the town’s 200 Black residents moving away never to return.
The rise of sundown towns made it difficult and dangerous for Blacks to travel long distances by car. In 1930, for instance, 44 of the 89 counties along the famed Route 66 from Chicago to Los Angeles featured no motels or restaurants and prohibited Blacks from entering after dark. In response, Victor H. Green, a postal worker from Harlem, compiled the Negro Motorist Green Book, a guide to accommodations that served Black travelers. The guide was published from 1936 to 1966, and at its height of popularity was used by two million people.
Road trips for African Americans were fraught with inconveniences and dangers because of racial segregation, racial profiling by police, the phenomenon of travelers just “disappearing”, 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. The majority of these towns were not in the South—they ranged from Levittown, N.Y., to Glendale, Calif., and included the majority of municipalities in Illinois.” The Green Book 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.”
Historians have found that most sundown towns deliberately hid how they became and remained all-white. Apart from oral histories, there are often few archival records that describe precisely how sundown towns excluded Blacks. Laws and policies that enforced racial exclusion have largely disappeared, but de facto sundown towns existed into the 1980s, and some may still be in evidence today.
The late James Loewen, author of the book, “Sundown Towns” stated that “sundown towns are not a Southern phenomenon….They’re all over the place.” And yet, they seem to be hidden in plain sight.
Loewen believed that this history remained forgotten for so long because of “our cultural tendency to connect extreme racism with the South.” But lack of accountability in former sundown towns may also play a factor.
An interesting side note: On June 7, 2017, the NAACP issued a warning to prospective African American travelers to Missouri, suggesting that, if they must go to Missouri, they travel with bail money in hand. This is the first NAACP warning ever covering an entire state. The advisory was issued after Senate Bill 43 passed through the Missouri Legislature – This bill significantly changes the standard for determining whether an employer is liable for discrimination under the Missouri Human Rights Act. It makes it more difficult for employees to prove their protected class, like race or gender, directly led to unlawful discrimination, and it makes easier for law enforcement to do unnecessary search and seizures leading to potential arrest of non-whites. The NAACP calls the legislation a “Jim Crow Bill.
https://www.mapbox.com/blog/uncovering-the-distribution-of-sundown-towns
The Historical Memory Recovery Channel 