Sundown towns, sometimes known as sunset towns, are all-white municipalities or neighborhoods in the United States that practice racism a form of segregation by enforcing restrictions excluding people of other races via some combination of racial, discriminatory local laws, intimidation, and violence.
Eventhough this clip is 30 years old these type of towns still exist today but not a lot of media coverage talks about it. Well, after Donald Trump won the presidential election many racist incidents were taking place all over America simultaneously. These attitudes persist in the present times.
From Maine to California, thousands of communities kept out African Americans (or sometimes Chinese Americans, Jewish Americans, etc.) by force, law, or custom. These communities are sometimes called "sundown towns" because some of them posted signs at their city limits reading, typically, "Nigger, Don't Let The Sun Go Down On You In ___."
Some towns are still all white on purpose. Their chilling stories have been joined more recently by the many elite (and some not so elite) suburbs like Grosse Pointe, MI, or Edina, MN, that have excluded nonwhites by "kinder gentler means." When I began this research, I expected to find about 10 sundown towns in Illinois (my home state) and perhaps 50 across the country. Instead, James Loewen has found about 507 in Illinois alone and thousands across the United States. There is a book called Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of Segregation in America by James W. Loewen that details in a sweeping analysis of American suburban residential patterns of strict racial exclusion which was the norm in American towns and villages from sea to shining sea for much of the twentieth century.
The video below is from 2016 present day and still look at the mindset of hateful racists. Warning: explicit language.
Insolent Politics
Sources: Sundown.tougaloo.edu, EncyclopediaOfArkansas.net
Eventhough this clip is 30 years old these type of towns still exist today but not a lot of media coverage talks about it. Well, after Donald Trump won the presidential election many racist incidents were taking place all over America simultaneously. These attitudes persist in the present times.
From Maine to California, thousands of communities kept out African Americans (or sometimes Chinese Americans, Jewish Americans, etc.) by force, law, or custom. These communities are sometimes called "sundown towns" because some of them posted signs at their city limits reading, typically, "Nigger, Don't Let The Sun Go Down On You In ___."
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| Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism by James W. Loewen |
Some towns are still all white on purpose. Their chilling stories have been joined more recently by the many elite (and some not so elite) suburbs like Grosse Pointe, MI, or Edina, MN, that have excluded nonwhites by "kinder gentler means." When I began this research, I expected to find about 10 sundown towns in Illinois (my home state) and perhaps 50 across the country. Instead, James Loewen has found about 507 in Illinois alone and thousands across the United States. There is a book called Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of Segregation in America by James W. Loewen that details in a sweeping analysis of American suburban residential patterns of strict racial exclusion which was the norm in American towns and villages from sea to shining sea for much of the twentieth century.
The video below is from 2016 present day and still look at the mindset of hateful racists. Warning: explicit language.
Insolent Politics
Sources: Sundown.tougaloo.edu, EncyclopediaOfArkansas.net
