Sundown Towns and Counties: Racial Exclusion in the South

Abstract

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Between 1890 and 1960, thousands of towns across United States drove out their black populations or took steps to forbid African Americans from living in them, creating towns, so named because many marked their city limits with signs typically reading, Nigger, Don't Let The Sun Go Down On You In--. In addition, some towns in West drove out or kept out Chinese Americans, and a few excluded Native Americans or Mexican Americans. developed a little later, most between 1900 and 1968, many of which kept out not only African Americans but also Jews. (1) This is a misunderstood phenomenon, especially as manifested in North. African Americans surely never uprooted by choice, and investigation reveals that most white towns are so by design. In Illinois, for example, 502 towns were all white or almost so, decade after decade; many still are. Research confirms formal and informal racial policies of 219 of them. Of those, 218, or 99.5%, kept out African Americans. About 500 Illinois communities-- two-thirds of all incorporated municipalities larger than 1,000--were sundown towns. Some still are. Oregon, Indiana, and some other northern states show similar proportions. (2) These facts remained hidden because of our cultural tendency to connect extreme racism with South. In reality, sundown towns were rare in most of Dixie, and places they did spread reveal interesting facets of region's racial history after Reconstruction. The later development of sundown suburbs in South emulated northern patterns of race relations. Although we must take note of gated communities now spreading across South, decline of sundown suburbs and towns may show that region is moving beyond municipality-level and countywide residential exclusion at a faster clip than Midwest and Northeast. DEFINING A SUNDOWN TOWN Sundown towns are (or were) all white by design. To determine whether a community is or was a sundown town, considering racial composition is paramount. Towns with no African Americans on their rolls pass this first test, of course, but so do towns with non-household blacks. Izard County, Arkansas, for example, had 191 black residents in 2000, but only two African American households; rest were inmates of state prison. Live-in servants in white households also do not violate taboo against independent black residents. A or county with very few African American households decade after decade, or with a sharp drop in African American populations between two censuses, is a sundown if their absence is intentional. Credible sources must confirm that whites expelled African Americans, or took steps to keep them from moving in. Such local sources as county histories, wpa files, and even centennial coffee-table books may acknowledge that a community drove out its African American population or took steps to ensure that none ever entered. More often, though, residents do not write such things down, but conversation can be revealing. Credible details about what happened, gathered from more than one person, confirm a town's sundown status. Newspaper articles, tax records, or manuscript census can corroborate oral histories. Information from written and oral sources in nearby towns is also valuable. (3) [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Towns need not be quite all white to be considered sundown. When Boone County, Arkansas, expelled its African Americans in a 1909 race riot, for example, one remained as a servant to a white family. Alecta Caledonia Melvina Smith boasted she was the best nigger ever born, 'cause all rest was run off. (4) Sometimes sole black resident might be shoeshine boy, living in basement of hotel. White residents invoked such exceptions to exemplify rule to newcomers. Thus, a community could still meet definition of town even with a black household or two if it posted sundown signs or otherwise kept out African American newcomers. …