Sundown towns (1890-1968 ) were white-only towns in America where blacks and others were not allowed to live. There were thousands of them. They were outlawed in 1968 by the Fair Housing Act.
The name comes from signs at the edge of town warning blacks to leave by sundown. One sign in Hawthorne, California in the 1930s said, “Nigger, don’t let the sun set on you in Hawthorne.” Blacks were allowed in town during the day to work but had to leave before nightfall.
Most sundown towns were not in the South, like you might think, but in the North and Midwest. The South kept the races separate and unequal with Jim Crow laws. In the North and Midwest many towns simply drove blacks out, especially in the 1890s, and kept them out. Blacks lost their land and houses and sometimes their lives.
It was not just blacks who were affected by this sort of thing. To a lesser degree so were Jews, Chinese, Mexicans and Native Americans, sometimes even Catholics. Idaho, for example, was once a third Chinese. That was before the whites drove them out.
These towns were not just here and there in lost little corners of the country. They were everywhere. President George W. Bush grew up in one. So did Emily Post, Edgar Rice Burroughs (who gave us Tarzan), Joe McCarthy (who drove out Communists) and Dale Carnegie.
Levittown on Long Island in New York state was one. It became the model for white suburbia – not just in its look-alike houses, but also in its Wonder Bread whiteness. No blacks lived there. Not because blacks could not afford it, but because whites were not allowed to sell their houses to them!
William Levitt, himself a Jew, said, “If we sell one house to a Negro family, then 90 to 95 percent of our white customers will not buy.”
Some other notable sundown towns: Darien, Connecticut, Grosse Pointe, Michigan, Tarzana, California and Cicero, Illinois.
A sundown town might have one or two black families, but no more were allowed to move in.
Whenever I return to America from overseas I know I am back home because I see black people again. Blacks are part of what America is. Even in Alaska.
So when a town has no blacks or just one or two families, it is unnatural. It means blacks are being kept out somehow.
Before 1968 towns could keep blacks out by law and by violence. The police or the good white people would throw them out – or sometimes even kill them.
But now there are other ways to keep a place nearly all white, like redlining. So the same thing still goes on today but by different means.
The proof of this is just how white the white suburbs are. Almost 90% of suburban whites live in places that are less than 1% black! Whites see nothing wrong with that – in a country where 9% of the middle class is black!
White suburbia has taken the place of the old sundown towns.
See also:
- Sundown Towns – James Loewen’s website. He has done most of the research on this and wrote a book about it.
- SUNDOWN TOWNS « BEAUTIFUL, ALSO, ARE THE SOULS OF MY BLACK SISTERS
- Race in America
- Jim Crow
- The black middle class in America
- Apple-pie America
Nice post Abagond I had heard of these towns from my grandparents. I think I will look into writing a future post about this as well.
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Very nice post. I hope people wake up to the reality that sundown towns still exists and that people who still lives there have very apple-pie outlook on the world. They think social problems doesn’t affect them.
Steph
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Thanks.
Jazzy: definitely write about the experience of your grandparents!
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Abagond,
I read somewhere on the web regarding Bill O’Reilly. He was raised in Levittown, NY, a sundown town where Blacks were not allow to buy a home there. Middle class Blacks had to live in a nearby town instead.
His comments about Blacks didn’t surprise me at all because of his all-white upbringing in Levittown.
S.B.
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I did not know that, but it makes sense of so much.
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How ’bout a footnote! The information is from SUNDOWN TOWNS by James Loewen.
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Wow. Hi! I do not do footnotes. This is not an academic website, but just some place where I write about stuff that interests me.
I thought this was public domain knowledge, like the size of Alaska or what is on the dark side of the moon. I did not know I should give credit. Sorry about that.
I gave you credit under “See also”. If that is not good enough, please let me know.
Thanks.
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As a white lady, I always want to go back to all white enclaves. Our dream will come true. It is not safe to live among the mixed race people. My black friend prefered to live in the white home area because the high crimes in her black enclave. Unfair to the white residents.
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Maybe a nice meth-down town would suite you! I understand that there are many of these springing up lately. I think the way it works is that all the Blacks leave at sundown, and then all the meth pipes and White biker gangs come out. It’s really quite Norman Rockwell!
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I hear that the town Sara Palin was once mayor of (before becoming Governess) is really quite nice. Meth capital of the Pacific Coast and lily white as they come.
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I just discovered that Sheboygan Wisconsin was one of these, at least up to WWII.
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Sarah Palin’s hometown of Wasilla, Alaska is 0.59% black. The state average is six times higher than that: 3.5%.
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I also agree that I thought the subject of sundown towns is something in the public domain — the subject itself does not need to give credit to anyone. Ditto for the comments about Levittown, the Fair Housing Act, etc.
However, if you borrowed any information in the body of the material that was not based on your own research or opinion, then of course you should state the source of that research. But reading what you wrote, I am not sure that a footnote is truly needed.
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Vidor, Texas is such a place in 2013. Klan country.
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I feel that the suburbs are reverse at least in Chiacgo. Many white people have moved in the downtown area and have drove blacks into the suburbs. The burbs have always had their problems, poor plumbing, electrical problems, too far commute, flooding, dead malls, and spotty transportation so you need a car. In the 90’s I advise all my parents to stay away from the suburbs unless all the services were truely there.
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I had never heard of this – incredible stuff.
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I just recently heard of sundown towns from a journalist on TV researching these types of towns. It was very interesting and enlightening. I will definitely check out any town in the USA that I will be thinking about visiting for vacation. I do not want to spend one dime in those towns. It’s ridiculous to be still dealing with such things in 2014, don’t they know how stupid it makes them look? Well I guess not!!LOL
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Hawthorne, California is 50% Latino, 30% White, 15% Black (that includes Igbo and Yoruba Nigerians and Garifuna and Kriol Belizeans), 3% Asian-American, 1% Tongan (Polynesian) and 1% other. I lived in Hawthorne when I was a college student for two years. I do know that in the 1980s about 90 percent of Whites left the eastern part of Hawthorne when Blacks and Latinos moved there. Whites moved further west of Hawthorne or in neighboring White predominant-cities in the South Bay area. As a growing kid my friends and I would catch the public bus to the famous Hawthorne Mall (now closed) but to only experience racism from many Whites who didn’t want us in their city. I must admit that I was shocked to learn that the city I once lived in was a sundown town.
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I read an interesting article about the sundown town of Anna (located in the state of Illinois). Many older residents of the former sundown town said that Anna stood for “Ain’t No Niggers Allowed.”
One of the most infamous stories of a sundown town is Martinsville, Indiana. Martinsville is the city where a Black female college student named Carol Jenkins was murdered. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Carol_Jenkins
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The easiest way to turn a $300,000 house into a $150,000 house is to move a black family in next door. This is a fact. Black neighbors are detrimental to the long term value of your home.
If you think that I am just being a bigot, and that I have no grounds for my statement, then would you please name me an affluent black city? I think that they are as rare as civilized black countries.
Just sayin’…..
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@ Virgil
Yeah, I wonder what might have caused such a legacy????
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockbusting
Could it have been dishonest and money grubbing White people??
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@King
We already have a post on that
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There are plenty of upper middle class / wealthy majority black towns / neighbourhoods.
http://atlantablackstar.com/2014/01/03/10-richest-black-communities-america/
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@ jeffe
Hmmm… How did I miss that one??
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@Virgil Suggs III Prince Georges county in Maryland is known as an affluent “black” county. There are others: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2015/01/23/prince-georges-neighborhoods-make-top-10-list-of-richest-black-communities-in-america/
http://atlantablackstar.com/2014/01/03/10-richest-black-communities-america/…and not ALL black people are ghetto, sloths or any stereotype. I come from an affluent area. Not saying that what you are saying, but in general thats what most people think. The Washington, DC area is home to many affluent blacks, latinos, everyone. I wish people would stop looking at race for everything.
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I have James W.Loewen’s Sundown Towns in my Amazon cart.
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I don’t see what the problem is with having a few towns that are reserved for each race. Look up Orania in South Africa – people who don’t want to interact with other groups should be allowed to within reason – they shouldn’t get to monopolize institutions and land like during Jim Crow and Apartheid, but if some white people want to found their own exclusive town in the middle of nowhere on land they purchased for that purpose, who cares?
I plan to one day buy my own 20 or so acres of land with a nice house, and spend the rest of my life on my property, only ever leaving it to go to the store/doctor/etc…
In my case, it’s not really about racial separatism, but more about just liking my privacy, and my own space, and I just want people to leave me alone. I wouldn’t want other white people moving onto my property any more than I would want black people moving there.
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