Sundown towns, also known as sunset towns, gray towns, or sundowner towns, are all-white municipalities or neighborhoods in the United States that practice a form of racial segregation by excluding non-whites via some combination of discriminatory local laws, intimidation or violence. The term came from signs posted that "colored people" had to leave town by sundown.[1]
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Entire sundown counties[2] and sundown suburbs were also created by the same process. The practice was not restricted to the southern states, with New Jersey and other northern states being described as equally inhospitable to black travelers until at least the early 1960s.[3] Current practices in a number of present-day towns, in the view of some commentators, perpetuate a modified version of the sundown town.[4][5]
Discriminatory policies and actions distinguish sundown towns from towns that have no black residents for demographic reasons. Historically, towns have been confirmed as sundown towns by newspaper articles, county histories, and Works Progress Administration files, corroborated by tax or U.S. census records showing an absence of black people or sharp drop in the black population between two censuses.[6][2][7]
New laws were enacted in the 20th century. One example is Louisville, Kentucky, whose mayor proposed a law in 1911 that would restrict black people from owning property in certain parts of the city.[19] This city ordinance reached public attention when it was challenged in the U.S. Supreme Court case Buchanan v. Warley in 1917. Ultimately, the court decided that the laws passed in Louisville were unconstitutional, thus setting the legal precedent that similar laws could not exist or be passed in the future.[19] This one legal victory did not stop towns from developing into sundown towns. City planners and real estate companies used their power and authority to ensure that white communities remained white, and black communities remained black. These were private individuals making decisions to personally benefit themselves, their companies' profits, or their cities' alleged safety, so their methods in creating sundown towns were often ignored by the courts.[20] In addition to unfair housing rules, citizens turned to violence and harassment in making sure black people would not remain in their cities after sundown.[21] Whites in the North felt that their way of life was threatened by the increased minority populations moving into their neighborhoods and racial tensions started to build. This often boiled over into violence, sometimes extreme, such as the 1943 Detroit race riot.[22]
Since the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, and especially since the Fair Housing Act of 1968's prohibition of racial discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of housing, the number of sundown towns has decreased. However, as sociologist James W. Loewen writes in his book, 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.[23]
Additionally, Loewen writes that sundown status meant more than just that African Americans were unable to live in these towns. Any black people who entered or were found in sundown towns after sunset were subject to harassment, threats, and violence, including lynching.[23]
The Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education ruled segregation of schools unconstitutional in 1954. 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 those states following the decision.[2]
In Maria Marulanda's 2011 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 to suffer, despite the purported target being undocumented immigrants, in these cases of racial exclusion.[31]
From 1851 to at least 1876, Antioch, California, had a sundown ordinance that barred Chinese residents from being out in public after dark.[32] In 1876, white residents drove the Chinese out of town and then burned down the Chinatown section of the city.[32]
In 2019, sociologist Heather O'Connell wrote that sundown towns are "(primarily) a thing of the past",[42] but writer Morgan Jerkins disagreed, saying: "Sundown towns have never gone away."[4] Historian James W. Loewen notes persisting effects of sundown towns' violently enforced segregation even after they may have been integrated to a small degree, a phenomenon he calls "second-generation sundown towns."[4]
For example, Ferguson, Missouri, was never a sundown city, but its black population dwindled to only 15 while the total population grew to over 22,000 by 1960 and the black population in nearby areas grew substantially. In 2018, four out of six Ferguson city councilors were black, and the police department was much more diverse.[43] A consent decree had prohibited racial profiling.[44] The terms of the consent decree prohibited activities that would categorize Ferguson as a second-generation sundown city. As of 2020, the consent decree has only been partially implemented, leaving Ferguson's status as a second-generation sundown city unclear.[45]
Ed Gordon discusses the historical significance of so-called "sundown towns," some of which are now promoting inclusiveness. Guests include Jim Hunt, president of the National League of Cities, and Harvard law professor Charles Ogletree.
And joining us via phone is Harvard law professor Charles Ogletree. Professor Ogletree leads the law schools' Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice. Gentlemen, great to have you on the program. Professor, let me start with you. Give us a quick historical view, of you will, of these, quote, sundown towns.
Professor CHARLES OGLETREE (Harvard Law School; Head of Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice): Well, thanks, Ed. As you know, when I was doing research on the Tulsa race riots from 1921, I was astounded to learn of the literally hundreds of towns - now we've discovered thousands of towns around America - in the South, but not exclusively in the South, where blacks were told leave before sundown. There were sirens, there were notices, and the consequences of staying in those towns were death or other serious bodily injury.
And the good news is that that is largely historical, but it's a frightening sense that people could not live in the community. They could work there, they could visit there, but they couldn't' be there after dark because of the strongly held feelings about segregation. And sundown towns were just that: if you're black, get out of town before the sun goes down.
Prof. OGLETREE: I think there's a skepticism, Ed, that's been developed because of historical concerns. And I applaud Jim Hunt and what the National League of Cities has done. But for everyday citizens - and they were largely African- Americans, but now they're Hispanics and other immigrants and foreigners who face this sense - the phenomena is greater than simply sundown towns. What we see now in urban American, in many of these urban communities is that folks are locked in - which means everything closes at six anyway. The vitality of the cities - of many major urban cities has been damaged. It's been moved to the suburbs. And when you talk about the suburbs, they're locked out. They can't live there, they often can't work there.
And I like what they're doing, but it would be very great if we could see the urban areas get some benefit and people of color feel that they're welcome anywhere. That's not the case. It's not just race and ethnicity, it's really economic discrimination. The sense is that people of color are going to bring crime, they're going to bring drugs, they're going to bring down the economy on the property values - that's the larger phenomenon that I hope NLC will confront and take on some of these urban cities who need to have something happening after 6:00. Because if not, it becomes a corollary of the sundown towns of the last century.
[Spoken prelude:] "Sundown". A new day in a new town. I had a gal in New Jersey who broke my heart, ripped it to shreds, trampled on it, and sent it to me, COD, in a paper bag. So, I was out of there, on the first ride west, no looking back. I was going to build a new life in California, 3,000 miles away from the pain. But it didn't uh, didn't take long before my luck ran out and my money ran out. And it just wasn't gonna happen, so... Well this song was my shot, my tribute to all the great Jimmy Webb songs about character and place. Here, we find my brother in heartbreak a long way from home. Trying to work it off, sweat it out, over a long lonely summer in a faraway town.I'm twenty-five hundred miles from where I wanna beIt feels like a hundred years since you've been near to meI guess what goes around, baby, comes aroundJust wishing you were here with me, in SundownSundown ain't the kind of place you wanna be on your ownIt's all long, hot, endless days and cold nights all aloneI drift from bar to bar, here in lonely townJust wishing you were here with me, come sundownIn Sundown the cafés are filled with lovers passing timeIn Sundown all I've got's trouble on my mindSo I work all day out here on the county lineI tell myself it's all just gonna work out in timeWhen summer's through, you'll come aroundThat little voice in my head's all that keeps me from sinking downCome SundownWhen summer's through, and you'll come aroundThat little voice in my head's all that keeps me from sinking downCome Sundown 2ff7e9595c
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