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Sundown town

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Sundown towns, known as sunset towns or gray towns, were all-white municipalities or neighborhoods that practiced a form of segregation by enforcing restrictions excluding people of non-white races via some combination of discriminatory local laws, intimidation, and violence. The term came from signs posted that "colored people" had to leave town by sundown.[1]

History

During the post antebellum era, many thousands of towns became sundown towns. African-Americans, who had lived predominantly in rural areas in the northern states, moved to major urban centers that were not sundown towns. Towns in the southern states, where many of the workers were African-Americans, were less often sundown towns.[2]

In some 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 a number of ways, including harassment by law enforcement officers.[3]

In 1844 Oregon banned African-Americans from the territory altogether. Those that failed to leave were subject to receiving lashings, under a law known as the "Peter Burnett Lash Law" named for California's first governor, Peter Hardeman Burnett. The law was eventually repealed, with no persons ever lashed under the law.[4]

Since the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, and especially since the Civil Rights Act of 1968 prohibited racial discrimination concerning the sale, rental, and financing of housing, the number of sundown towns has decreased. However, as sociologist James W. Loewen writes in his book on the subject, Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism (2005), it is impossible to precisely count 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 notes that hundreds of cities across America have been sundown towns at some point in their history.[5]

Additionally, Loewen notes that sundown status meant more than just that African-Americans were unable to live in these towns. Essentially any African-Americans (or sometimes other ethnic groups) who entered or were found in sundown towns after sunset were subject to harassment, threats, and violent acts—up to and including lynching.[5]

The U.S. Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education ruled segregation of schools unconstitutional in 1954. Sociologist James Loewen argues 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 the states following the decision.[6]

Identifying sundown towns

Towns that saw a sharp drop in the African American population between two censuses can be classified as sundown towns if the African American absence was intentional. Credible sources including tax and census records, newspaper articles, county histories, and WPA files are required to confirm a town as a sundown town.[7]

Extensive research beyond examining U.S. Census data is required in order to document a sundown town. Researchers must determine that the absence of African Americans in a town is due to a systematic policy and not change in demographics.[8]

Other people of color targeted

African-Americans were not the only people of color driven out of some towns where they lived. 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.[5]: 51  In another example, the town of Gardnerville, Nevada is said to have blown a whistle at 6 p.m. daily alerting Native Americans to leave by sundown.[5]: 23  Three additional examples of the numerous road signs documented during the first half of the 20th century include:[9]

  • In Colorado: "No Mexicans After Night".
  • In Connecticut: "Whites Only Within City Limits After Dark'.
  • In Nevada, the ban was expanded to include Japanese.

Jews were also excluded from living in some sundown towns, such as Darien, Connecticut[5] and Lake Forest, Illinois (which kept anti-Jewish and anti-African American housing covenants until 1990).[10]

In Maria Marulanda's 2010 article in the Fordham Law Review titled "Preemption, Patchwork Immigration Laws, and the Potential for Brown Sundown Towns", Marulanda outlines the possibility for non-blacks to be excluded from towns in the United States. Marulanda argued that immigration laws and ordinances in certain municipalities could create similar situations to those experienced by African Americans in sundown towns. Hispanic Americans are likely the target in these cases of racial exclusion.[11]

Travel guides

Described by former NAACP President Julian Bond as "One of the survival tools of segregated life",[12] 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 published by Hackensack, New Jersey letter carrier turned New York travel agent Victor H. Green, for African-American motorists.[12] It was published in the United States from 1936 to 1966, during the Jim Crow era, when discrimination against non-whites was widespread.[13] 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. These towns were not limited to the South—they ranged from Levittown, New York, to Glendale, California, and included the majority of municipalities in Illinois."[12]

S

Sundown suburbs and inburbs

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. Harassment and inducements helped to keep African Americans out of new suburban areas. Schooling also played a large role in keeping the suburbs white. The suburbs often did not provide schools for blacks, causing black families to send their children to school in large municipalities such as Atlanta, Georgia. African Americans were forced to pay a fee to the central municipality in order for their children to attend school there. Despite the fee, they were not provided transportation to school in the city. The education barrier to African Americans in the suburbs caused many to migrate to cities across the United States. In addition to the educational barriers, home developers in the 1950s built all-white subdivisions, pushing more African Americans out of the suburbs.[6]

The African Americans that lived in suburban areas were janitors, cooks, and gardeners for white families. The few African Americans that lived in the suburbs occupied their own working-class sections of the neighborhoods. Towns with interracial populations such as Chamblee, Georgia, and Pearl, Mississippi forced their African Americans to leave town as they developed into suburbs. Home developers in the 1950s built all-white subdivisions, pushing more African Americans out of the suburbs.[6]

In her memoir I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, poet Maya Angelou describes sundown towns existing in parts of the South. She describes Mississippi as inhospitable to African Americans after dark: "Don't let the sun set on you here nigger, Mississippi."[14]

The 1959 film by Sidney Lumet, The Fugitive Kind, starring Marlon Brando and Anna Magnani, mentions sundown towns. A small town sheriff in the south tells Brando's character about a sign in a town that says, "Nigger, don't let the sun go down on you in this county"[6]

Oprah Winfrey visited Forsyth County, Georgia on a 1987 episode of her television show. The county is infamous for its expulsion of African Americans at the beginning of the 20th century.[6]

Playwright John Henry Redwood III wrote the play No Niggers, No Jews, No Dogs after he saw the words written on a sign from a sundown town in Mississippi. The play is set in a sundown town in the American South.[15]

Tennessee Williams' play Orpheus Descending features a sign reading "nigger, don't let the sun go down on you in this county."[15]

Films

Some cinematic treatments of the subject include:

See also

References

  1. ^ Morgan, Gordon D. (1973). Black Hillbillies of the Arkansas Ozarks. Assistance by Dina Cagle and Linde Harned. Fayetteville: U of AR Dept. of Sociology. p. 60. OCLC 2509042.
  2. ^ "Focus; Sundown Towns: a Hidden Dimension of Segregation in America". American Archive of Public Broadcasting (WGBH and the Library of Congress). Boston, MA and Washington, DC: WILL Illinois Public Media. September 20, 2005. Retrieved September 21, 2016.
  3. ^ Oppenheim, Keith (December 13, 2006). "Texas city haunted by 'no blacks after dark' past". CNN. Retrieved 22 May 2011.
  4. ^ https://www.facebook.com/deneen.l.brown. "When Portland banned blacks: Oregon's shameful history as an 'all-white' state". Washington Post. Retrieved 2017-06-07. {{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help); External link in |last= (help)
  5. ^ a b c d e f g Loewen, James W. (2005). Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism. New York: The New Press. p. 218. ISBN 156584887X.
  6. ^ a b c d e James, Loewen (2009). "Sundown Towns and Counties: Racial Exclusion in the South". Southern Cultures. 15: 22–44.
  7. ^ Loewen, James (2009). "Sundown Towns and Counties: Racial Exclusion in the South". Southern Cultures. 15: 22–44.
  8. ^ "Shedding Light on Sundown Towns". www.asanet.org. Retrieved 2017-03-16.
  9. ^ Cite error: The named reference Bruce, Andrea was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  10. ^ Privilege, Power, and Place: The Geography of the American Upper Class. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. 1995. pp. 61–63. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |authors= ignored (help) Print.
  11. ^ Marulanda, Maria (2010). "Preemption, Patchwork Immigration Laws, and the Potential for Brown Sundown Towns". Fordham Law Review. 79: 321.
  12. ^ 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.
  13. ^ "The Negro Motorist Green-Book". America On the Move. United States Travel Bureau (1940 ed.). New York City: Victor H. Green.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  14. ^ Maya, Angelou. I know why the caged bird sings. ISBN 0349005990. OCLC 962406229.
  15. ^ a b "Sundown Towns on Stage and Screen". History News Network. Retrieved 2017-03-16.
  16. ^ Henson, Robby (1991). Trouble Behind. Cicada Films.
  17. ^ "Archives 1991 Sundance Film Festival: Trouble Behind". Sundance Institute. 1991.
  18. ^ Scheiderer, David (February 17, 1992). "TV Reviews : A Legacy of Racism in 'Trouble Behind'". Retrieved 2016-04-26.
  19. ^ Williams, Marco (2006). Banished: How Whites Drove Blacks Out of Town in America. Cicada Films.
  20. ^ Williams, Marco (2006). Banished.
  21. ^ Jaspin, Elliot (2007). Buried in the Bitter Waters: The Hidden History of Racial Cleansing in America. Basic Books. ISBN 9780465036363.
  22. ^ Maguire, Ellen (February 19, 2008). "PBS's 'Banished' Exposes the Tainted Past of Three White Enclaves". The Washington Post.
  23. ^ Penrice, Ronda Racha (February 25, 2014). "'Sundown Towns' under a spotlight in new Investigation Discovery documentary". The Grio.
  24. ^ "Injustice Files: Sundown Towns". Investigation Discovery. February 14, 2014.

Further reading

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