Evolution of a sundown town and racial caste system: Norman, Oklahoma from 1889 to 1967

Abstract

Sundown regions were post-Reconstruction localities that deliberately excluded African Americans, often well into the 20th century. While former states of the Confederacy instituted state-wide racial caste systems denying African Americans basic political and economic privileges and opportunities, what of localities outside the Deep South? This case study concludes that Norman, Oklahoma, located outside of the Deep South, was a sundown town from 1889 to 1967 or for 78 years. Sundown implementation practices resulting in ongoing racial cleansing and exclusion include a variety of extra-legal actions including violent racial expulsion in the beginning; Ku Klux Klan terror in the 1920s; ongoing freeze-out of local services such as hotel services; denial of home ownership; denial of employment; curtailment of political rights including voting and freedom of movement; an ominous reputation as a sundown town; continuing violence; and threats. The widespread act of systematically excluding African Americans after dark from Norman, in tandem with state legislation that outlawed interracial marriage and intimate relationships until 1967 and maintaining all white public colleges until 1948, contributed to a racial caste system based on unequal opportunities and privileges afforded to whites. Sundown practices were not only ongoing geographic and racist Jim Crow segregation issues as is sometimes stated, but also, a key approach to enforce a rigid racial caste system in the midst of a society with democratic ideals.