sundown town

{{Short description|All-white municipalities that practice a form of racial segregation}}

Sundown towns, also known as sunset towns, gray towns, or sundowner towns, were all-white municipalities or neighborhoods in the United States. They were towns that practiced a form of racial segregation by excluding non-whites via some combination of discriminatory local laws, intimidation or violence. They were most prevalent before the 1950s. The term came into use because of signs that directed "colored people" to leave town by sundown.{{Cite book |last=Morgan |first=Gordon D. |url=https://library.uark.edu/record=b1327618~S1 |title=Black Hillbillies of the Arkansas Ozarks |date=1973 |publisher=University of Arkansas Department of Sociology |others=Assistance by Dina Cagle and Linde Harned |location=Fayetteville, Arkansas |page=60 |oclc=2509042 |access-date=2015-09-11 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210309020022/https://library.uark.edu/record=b1327618~S1 |archive-date=2021-03-09 |url-status=live |via=Library.UARK.edu}}

Sundown counties and sundown suburbs were created as well. While sundown laws became illegal following the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, some commentators hold that certain 21st-century practices perpetuate a modified version of the sundown town.{{Cite news |last=Newton |first=Kamilah |date=August 25, 2020 |title=What Are 'Sundown Towns'? Historically All-White Towns in America See Renewed Scrutiny Thanks to 'Lovecraft Country' |url=https://news.yahoo.com/what-are-sundown-towns-historically-allwhite-towns-in-america-see-renewed-scrutiny-230321396.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210518023245/https://news.yahoo.com/what-are-sundown-towns-historically-allwhite-towns-in-america-see-renewed-scrutiny-230321396.html |archive-date=18 May 2021 |access-date=19 January 2021 |work=Yahoo! News}} Some of these modern practices include racial profiling by local police and sheriff's departments, vandalism of public art, harassment by private citizens, and gentrification.{{Cite journal |last=Beaujot |first=Ariel |date=2018 |title=Sun Up in a Sundown Town: Public History, Private Memory, and Racism in a Small City |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/26504392 |journal=The Public Historian |volume=40 |issue=2 |pages=43–68 |jstor=26504392 |issn=0272-3433}}

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; this information has been corroborated by tax or U.S. census records showing an absence of Black people or a sharp drop in the Black population between two censuses.{{Cite web |last=Loewen |first=James William |author-link=James W. Loewen |title=Sundown Towns on Stage and Screen |url=http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/137284 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210114090106/http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/137284 |archive-date=2021-01-14 |access-date=2015-12-06 |publisher=History News Network}}{{Cite journal |last=Loewen |first=James William |author-link=James W. Loewen |year=2009 |title=Sundown Towns and Counties: Racial Exclusion in the South |journal=Southern Cultures |volume=15 |issue=1 |pages=22–44 |doi=10.1353/scu.0.0044 |s2cid=143592671}}{{Cite web |title=Shedding Light on Sundown Towns |url=https://www.asanet.org/sites/default/files/savvy/footnotes/mar06/fn5.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210224155948/https://www.asanet.org/sites/default/files/savvy/footnotes/mar06/fn5.html |archive-date=2021-02-24 |access-date=2017-03-16 |website=ASAnet.org |publisher=American Sociological Association}}

History

The earliest legal restrictions on the nighttime activities and movements of African Americans and other racial minorities date back to the colonial era. The general court and legislative assembly of New Hampshire passed "An Act to Prevent Disorders in the Night" in 1714:{{Cite book |last1=Sammons |first1=Mark J. |url=https://archive.org/details/blackportsmoutht00samm |title=Black Portsmouth: Three Centuries of African-American Heritage |last2=Cunningham |first2=Valerie |publisher=University of New Hampshire Press |year=2004 |isbn=9781584652892 |location=Durham, New Hampshire |lccn=2004007172 |oclc=845682328 |access-date=2009-07-27}}{{Cite book |url=https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/009706837 |title=Acts and Laws of His Majesty's Province of New Hampshire, in New England: With Sundry Acts of Parliament |publisher=Daniel Fowle |year=1759 |series=Laws, etc |location=Portsmouth, New Hampshire |page=[https://hdl.handle.net/2027/hvd.hxj3t1?urlappend=%3Bseq=64 40] |access-date=2020-10-14 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210415152015/https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/009706837 |archive-date=2021-04-15 |url-status=live}} {{blockquote|Whereas great disorders, insolencies and burglaries are oft times raised and committed in the night time by Indian, Negro, and Molatto Servants and Slaves to the Disquiet and hurt of her Majesty's subjects, No Indian, Negro, or Molatto is to be from Home after 9 o'clock.}}

Notices emphasizing and re-affirming the curfew were published in The New Hampshire Gazette in 1764 and 1771. Following the American Revolution, Virginia was the first state to prohibit the entry of all Free Negros. According to historian Kate Masur, American laws restricting where Black people could live drew inspiration from the English Poor Laws, which were implemented in the Kingdom of England during the Tudor period to restrict the movements of England's poor. These laws, which were implemented to ensure that municipal authorities were under no legal obligation to care for vagrants, proved to be a source of inspiration for American officials who aimed to prevent Black Americans from settling in their communities.{{Cite book |last=Masur |first=Kate |author-link=Kate Masur |title=Until Justice Be Done: America's First Civil Rights Movement, from the Revolution to Reconstruction |date=2021 |publisher=W. W. Norton |isbn=9781324005933 |location=New York |pages=3–7 |oclc=1200834282}}

Following the end of the Reconstruction era, thousands of towns and counties across the United States became sundown localities, as part of the imposition of Jim Crow laws and other segregationist practices. In most 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 several ways, including harassment by law enforcement officers.{{Cite news |last=Oppenheim |first=Keith |date=December 13, 2006 |title=Texas City Haunted by 'No Blacks After Dark' Past |url=http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/12/08/oppenheim.sundown.town/index.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200808125621/https://www.cnn.com/2006/US/12/08/oppenheim.sundown.town/index.html |archive-date=8 August 2020 |access-date=22 May 2011 |work=CNN}} Though no sundown towns exist today in the sense of publicly or legally excluding non-white residents, some commentators have applied the term to towns practicing other forms of racial exclusion.{{Cite book |last=Loewen |first=James William |author-link=James W. Loewen |title=Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism |date=2006 |publisher=The New Press |isbn=9781620974544 |location=New York |chapter=Sundown Towns Today |quote=During the last few years while I have been doing the research for this book, many people have asked, after learning that hundreds or thousands of sundown towns and suburbs dot the map of the United States, "Still? Surely it's not like that today?" |access-date=2020-08-23 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=abhIDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT281 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240806030153/https://books.google.com/books?id=abhIDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT281#v=onepage&q&f=false |archive-date=2024-08-06 |url-status=live}}

In 1844, Oregon, which had banned slavery, banned African Americans from the territory altogether. Those who failed to leave were liable to receive lashings under a law known as the "Peter Burnett Lash Law", named for Provisional Supreme Judge Peter Burnett. No persons were ever lashed under the law; it was quickly amended to replace lashing with forced labor, and eventually repealed the following year after a change in the makeup of the legislature.{{Cite news |last=Brown |first=DeNeen L. |date=June 7, 2017 |title=When Portland Banned Blacks: Oregon's Shameful History As an 'All-White' State |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2017/06/07/when-portland-banned-blacks-oregons-shameful-history-as-an-all-white-state/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210513115426/https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2017/06/07/when-portland-banned-blacks-oregons-shameful-history-as-an-all-white-state/ |archive-date=May 13, 2021 |access-date=June 7, 2017 |newspaper=The Washington Post}}{{Cite journal |last=Taylor |first=Quintard |author-link=Quintard Taylor |date=Summer 1982 |title=Slaves and Free Men: Blacks in the Oregon Country, 1840–1860 |journal=Oregon Historical Society Quarterly |location=Portland, Oregon |publisher=Oregon Historical Society |issue=83 |page=155}} However, additional laws aimed at African Americans entering Oregon were ratified in 1849 and 1857, the last of which was not repealed until 1926.{{Cite journal |last=Mcclintock |first=Thomas C. |date=1995 |title=James Saules, Peter Burnett, and the Oregon Black Exclusion Law of June 1844 |journal=The Pacific Northwest Quarterly |volume=86 |issue=3 |pages=121–130 |jstor=40491550}}{{Cite web |title=Black Exclusion Laws in Oregon |url=https://oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/exclusion_laws/#.WZMxAFGGOUk |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210508194216/https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/exclusion_laws/#.WZMxAFGGOUk |archive-date=8 May 2021 |access-date=15 August 2017 |website=oregonencyclopedia.org |publisher=Portland State University and Oregon Historical Society}}{{Cite journal |last=Davis |first=Lenwood G. |date=1972 |title=Sources for History of Blacks in Oregon |journal=Oregon Historical Quarterly |volume=73 |issue=3 |pages=196–211 |jstor=20613303}}

Outside Oregon, other places looked to laws and legislation to restrict Black people from residing within cities, towns and states.{{Cite journal |last=Gotham |first=Kevin Fox |date=2000 |title=Urban Space, Restrictive Covenants and the Origins of Racial Residential Segregation in a US City, 1900–50 |journal=International Journal of Urban and Regional Research |volume=24 |issue=3 |pages=616–633 |doi=10.1111/1468-2427.00268}} In 1853, new black residents were banned from moving to the state of Illinois. Those new residents who remained more than ten days and were unable to pay the fine were to be punished by forced labor. Although this law faced significant resistance, especially in Illinois' small black community, it was not repealed until the end of the Civil War in 1865.{{Cite web |last=Bridges |first=Roger D. |title=The Black Codes |url=https://www.lib.niu.edu/1996/iht329602.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210816151027/https://www.lib.niu.edu/1996/iht329602.html |archive-date=2021-08-16 |access-date=2021-10-29 |website=www.lib.niu.edu}} Similar bans on all black migration were passed in Michigan, Ohio and Iowa.{{Cite web |title=Northern Exclusion of Blacks |url=http://slavenorth.com/exclusion.htm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211106100843/http://slavenorth.com/exclusion.htm |archive-date=2021-11-06 |access-date=2021-10-29 |website=slavenorth.com}}

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.{{Cite journal |last=Power |first=Garrett |date=January 1, 1983 |title=Apartheid Baltimore Style: The Residential Segregation Ordinances of 1910–1913 |url=https://digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/mlr/vol42/iss2/4 |url-status=live |journal=Maryland Law Review |volume=42 |issue=2 |pages=289 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210307215407/https://digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/mlr/vol42/iss2/4/ |archive-date=March 7, 2021 |access-date=April 5, 2019}} This city ordinance reached public attention when it was challenged in the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of 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. However, this outcome did not stop towns from excluding black residents. Some city planners and real estate companies exercised their private authority to uphold racial segregation at the community level.{{Cite journal |last=Gotham |first=Kevin Fox |date=2000 |title=Urban Space, Restrictive Covenants and the Origins of Racial Residential Segregation in a US City, 1900–50 |journal=International Journal of Urban and Regional Research |location=Hoboken, New Jersey |publisher=Wiley-Blackwell |volume=24 |issue=3 |pages=616–633 |doi=10.1111/1468-2427.00268}} In addition to discriminatory housing rules, violence and harassment were sometimes used by locals to discourage Black people from remaining in their cities after sundown.{{Cite journal |last1=Cook |first1=Lisa |last2=Logan |first2=Trevon |last3=Parman |first3=John |date=September 2017 |title=Racial Segregation and Southern Lynching |journal=National Bureau of Economic Research Working Papers |location=Cambridge, MA |pages=w23813 |doi=10.3386/w23813 |doi-access=free}} Whites in the North were threatened by the increased minority populations moving into their neighborhoods, and racial tensions started to build. Interracial violence became more common, sometimes escalating to race riots.

After the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, and especially since the Fair Housing Act of 1968 prohibition of racial discrimination in the sale, rental and financing of housing, sundown towns gradually disappeared, with de facto sundown towns existing into the 1980s.Coen, R. (2020, August 23). Sundown Towns. BlackPast.org. Retrieved October 1, 2024, from https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/sundown-towns/ However, as sociologist James W. Loewen wrote in his 2005 book, Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism, it is impossible to count precisely 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 noted that hundreds of cities across America have been sundown towns at some point in their history.{{Cite book |last=Loewen |first=James William |author-link=James W. Loewen |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FPxJ_aG_B-8C |title=Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism |date=2005 |publisher=The New Press |isbn=978-1565848870 |location=New York |page=218}}

Additionally, Loewen wrote that sundown status meant more than just African Americans being unable to live in those towns. Any Black people who entered or were found in sundown towns after sunset were subject to harassment, threats and violence, including lynching.

The U.S. Supreme Court case of Brown v. Board of Education declared segregation of schools unconstitutional in 1954. Loewen speculates 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.

In 2019, sociologist Heather O'Connell wrote that sundown towns are "(primarily) a thing of the past".{{Cite journal |last=O'Connell |first=Heather A. |date=3 April 2018 |title=Historical Shadows: The Links between Sundown Towns and Contemporary Black–White Inequality |url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2332649218761979 |url-status=live |journal=Sociology of Race and Ethnicity |volume=5 |issue=3 |pages=311–325 |doi=10.1177/2332649218761979 |s2cid=158248806 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201012195118/https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2332649218761979 |archive-date=12 October 2020 |access-date=19 January 2021|url-access=subscription }} However, 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 called "second-generation sundown towns."

Function

File:Sundown Towns in the United States by County (Oct 2024).png

=Ethnic exclusions=

African Americans were not the only minority group not allowed to live in white towns. 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.{{rp|51}}

The towns of Minden and Gardnerville in Nevada had an ordinance from 1917 to 1974 that required Native Americans to leave the towns by 6:30 p.m. each day.{{Cite news |last=Brown |first=Julie |date=May 28, 2021 |title=For the Washoe Tribe of Lake Tahoe, a Sundown Siren Is a 'Living Piece of Historical Trauma' |url=https://www.sfgate.com/renotahoe/article/lake-tahoe-minden-sundown-siren-protest-washoe-16208057.php |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210607205657/https://www.sfgate.com/renotahoe/article/lake-tahoe-minden-sundown-siren-protest-washoe-16208057.php |archive-date=June 7, 2021 |access-date=May 30, 2021 |work=SFGate}} A whistle, later a siren, was sounded at 6 p.m. daily, alerting Native Americans to leave by sundown.{{rp|23}} In 2021, the state of Nevada passed a law prohibiting the appropriation of Native American imagery by the mascots of schools, and the sounding of sirens that were once associated with sundown ordinances. Despite this law, Minden continued to play its siren for two more years, claiming that it was a nightly tribute to first responders.{{Cite web |date=May 3, 2021 |title=Minden Snubs Tribal-Backed Ban on 'Sundown Sirens' Once Used to Push People of Color out of Town |url=https://www.rgj.com/story/news/politics/2021/05/03/lawmakers-activists-take-aim-sundown-siren-minden/4893403001/ |publisher=Reno Gazette Journal}}{{Cite news |date=May 27, 2021 |title=Bill That May Silence Minden Siren on Governor's Desk |url=https://www.recordcourier.com/news/2021/may/27/bill-may-silence-minden-siren-governors-desk/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210607182129/https://www.recordcourier.com/news/2021/may/27/bill-may-silence-minden-siren-governors-desk/ |archive-date=June 7, 2021 |publisher=The Record-Courier}}{{Cite web |date=June 5, 2021 |title=Nevada Passes Law That Bans Racially Discriminatory School Mascots and 'Sundown Sirens' |url=https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/05/us/nevada-law-racially-discriminatory-school-mascots-ban-sundown-siren/index.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210607181029/https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/05/us/nevada-law-racially-discriminatory-school-mascots-ban-sundown-siren/index.html |archive-date=June 7, 2021 |publisher=CNN}}{{Cite web |last=DeHaven |first=James |title=Minden Snubs Tribal-Backed Ban on 'Sundown Sirens' Once Used to Push People of Color out of Town |url=https://www.rgj.com/story/news/politics/2021/05/03/lawmakers-activists-take-aim-sundown-siren-minden/4893403001/ |access-date=2021-11-13 |website=Reno Gazette Journal |language=en-US}} An additional state law in 2023 led Minden to end the siren.{{Cite web |title=Minden Silences Daily Siren After Nevada Passes Bill Forbidding 'Sundown Ordinance' Sounds |url=https://www.rgj.com/story/news/2023/10/09/minden-sun-down-siren-to-remain-silenced/71083858007/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240806030058/https://www.rgj.com/story/news/2023/10/09/minden-sun-down-siren-to-remain-silenced/71083858007/ |archive-date=2024-08-06 |access-date=2024-01-20 |website=Reno Gazette Journal |language=en-US}}

Two examples of the road signs documented during the first half of the 20th century include:{{Cite news |last=Carlson |first=Peter |date=February 21, 2006 |title=When Signs Said 'Get Out' |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/20/AR2006022001590.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210126070540/https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/20/AR2006022001590.html |archive-date=January 26, 2021 |access-date=October 30, 2017 |newspaper=The Washington Post}}

In Colorado: "No Mexicans After Night"
In Connecticut: "Whites Only Within City Limits After Dark"

In her 2011 article "Preemption, Patchwork Immigration Laws, and the Potential for Brown Sundown Towns" in the Fordham Law Review, Maria Marulanda outlines the possibility for non-blacks to be excluded from towns in the United States. She argues that immigration laws and ordinances in certain municipalities could create situations similar 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.{{Cite journal |last=Marulanda |first=Maria |year=2011 |title=Preemption, Patchwork Immigration Laws, and the Potential for Brown Sundown Towns |url=https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/flr/vol79/iss1/11 |url-status=live |journal=Fordham Law Review |volume=79 |pages=321 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210308133323/https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/flr/vol79/iss1/11/ |archive-date=2021-03-08 |access-date=2019-09-02}}

From 1851 to at least 1876, Antioch, California, had a sundown ordinance that barred Chinese residents from being out in public after dark.{{Cite news |last=Dowd |first=Katie |date=April 7, 2021 |title=The Bay Area Town That Drove Out Its Chinese Residents for Nearly 100 Years |url=https://www.sfgate.com/sfhistory/article/antioch-race-riot-chinatown-arson-california-16067820.php |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210530222104/https://www.sfgate.com/sfhistory/article/antioch-race-riot-chinatown-arson-california-16067820.php |archive-date=May 30, 2021 |access-date=May 30, 2021 |work=SFGate}} In 1876, white residents drove the Chinese out of town and then burned down the Chinatown section of the city.

Chinese Americans were also excluded from most of San Francisco, leading to the establishment of Chinatown.{{Cite book |last=Loewen |first=James W. |author-link=James W. Loewen |title=Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism |date=2005 |publisher=The New Press |isbn=978-1-59558-674-2 |pages=47–89 |chapter=The Great Retreat |access-date=2022-11-24 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FPxJ_aG_B-8C&pg=PA47 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221124155637/https://books.google.com/books?id=FPxJ_aG_B-8C&pg=PA47 |archive-date=2022-11-24 |url-status=live |via=Google Books}}{{Cite journal |last=Durham |first=Joseph T. |date=Spring 2006 |title=Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism |journal=Negro Educational Review |volume=57 |issue=1/2 |pages=137–140 |id={{ProQuest|219038563}}}}

=Travel guides=

File:The Negro Motorist Green Book.jpg]]

Described by former NAACP President Julian Bond as "one of the survival tools of segregated life",{{Cite news |last=Kelly |first=Kate |date=March 8, 2014 |title=The Green Book: The First Travel Guide for African-Americans Dates to the 1930s |url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kate-kelly/the-green-book-the-first_b_4549962.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170702001220/http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kate-kelly/the-green-book-the-first_b_4549962.html |archive-date=July 2, 2017 |access-date=July 26, 2014 |work=Huffington Post |orig-year=January 6, 2014}} 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 for African American motorists, published by New York travel agent and former Hackensack, New Jersey, letter carrier Victor H. Green.{{Cite web |title=The Green Book: The forgotten story of one carrier's legacy helping others navigate Jim Crow's highways |url=https://www.nalc.org/news/the-postal-record/2013/september-2013 |access-date=2025-03-20 |website=National Association of Letter Carriers AFL-CIO |language=en}} It was published in the United States from 1936 to 1966, during the Jim Crow era, when discrimination against non-whites was widespread.{{Cite news |last=Victor H. Green |date=2 November 2016 |others=((United States Travel Bureau)) |title=The Negro Motorist Green-Book |url=http://amhistory.si.edu/onthemove/collection/object_583.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141126024459/http://amhistory.si.edu/onthemove/collection/object_583.html |archive-date=26 November 2014 |access-date=26 July 2014 |website=America On the Move |edition=1940 |location=New York }}{{Cite book |url=https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/dc858e50-83d3-0132-2266-58d385a7b928 |title=The Negro Motorist Green-Book |date=1940 |publisher=Victor H. Green & Co. |editor-last=Green |editor-first=Victor H. |location=New York |language=en |access-date=2022-12-10 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240806030133/https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/dc858e50-83d3-0132-2266-58d385a7b928 |archive-date=2024-08-06 |url-status=live |via=New York Public Library, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture}}

Road trips for African Americans were inconvenient and in some cases dangerous because of racial segregation, racial profiling by police, the high rate of murder of African American travelers{{Citation needed|date=October 2024}}, 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,{{Cite news |last=Hill |first=Zane |date=2020-09-19 |title=Council Condemns Glendale's Past Racism |url=https://outlooknewspapers.com/blog/2020/09/19/council-condemns-glendales-past-racism/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211008170204/https://outlooknewspapers.com/blog/2020/09/19/council-condemns-glendales-past-racism/ |archive-date=2021-10-08 |access-date=8 October 2021 |work=Outlook Newspapers |publisher=Outlook Newspapers}} and included the majority of municipalities in Illinois." The Green Book also advised drivers to wear, or have ready, a chauffeur's cap and, if stopped, relate that "they were delivering a car for a white person."

On June 7, 2017, the NAACP issued a warning to prospective African American travelers to Missouri. This is the first NAACP warning ever covering an entire state.{{Cite web |date=June 7, 2017 |title=Missouri Travel Advisory |url=http://www.monaacp.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/170605-NAACP-MO-Travel-Advisory.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210225003952/http://www.monaacp.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/170605-NAACP-MO-Travel-Advisory.pdf |archive-date=February 25, 2021 |access-date=August 7, 2017 |website=National Association for the Advancement of Colored People}} The NAACP conference president suggested that, if prospective African American travelers must go to Missouri, they travel with bail money in hand.{{Cite news |last=Coleman |first=Nancy |date=August 3, 2017 |title=NAACP issues Its First Statewide Travel Advisory, for Missouri |url=https://www.cnn.com/2017/08/02/us/naacp-missouri-travel-advisory-trnd/index.html |work=CNN |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171028030940/http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/02/us/naacp-missouri-travel-advisory-trnd/index.html |archive-date=2017-10-28}}.

= Sundown suburbs =

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. Most sundown suburbs were created between 1906 and 1968. By 1970, at the peak of the Civil Rights era, some sundown suburbs had already begun to desegregate. Harassment and inducements contributed to keeping African Americans out of new suburban areas.{{Cite journal |last=Loewen |first=James W. |author-link=James W. Loewen |date=Spring 2009 |title=Sundown Towns and Counties: Racial Exclusion in the South |url=https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?p=LitRC&u=googlescholar&id=GALE%7CA194428329&v=2.1&it=r&sid=googleScholar&asid=57bd6395 |url-status=live |journal=Southern Cultures |publisher=University of North Carolina Press |volume=15 |issue=1 |pages=22–47 |doi=10.1353/scu.0.0044 |jstor=26214270 |s2cid=143592671 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230731180631/https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?p=LitRC&u=googlescholar&id=GALE%7CA194428329&v=2.1&it=r&sid=googleScholar&asid=57bd6395 |archive-date=2023-07-31 |access-date=2023-05-10|url-access=subscription }}

List of sundown towns

Sundown towns in popular culture

Gentleman's Agreement (1947), is known as "the only feature film [of its era] to treat sundown towns seriously."{{rp|14}} It features a town that excludes Jewish people rather than Black people. According to James W. Loewen, "The anti-Nazi ideology opened more sundown suburbs to Jews than to African Americans... Gentleman's Agreement, Elia Kazan's 1948 Academy Award-winning movie [exposed] Darien, Connecticut, as an anti-Jewish sundown town."{{rp|394}}
The Fugitive Kind (1960), a film directed by Sidney Lumet and starring Marlon Brando and Anna Magnani, mentions sundown towns. A Southern sheriff tells Brando's character about a sign in the small town that reads, "Nigger, don't let the sun go down on you in this county." The same sign is shown in Tennessee Williams's play Orpheus Descending, upon which the film is based.{{Cite web |title=Sundown Towns on Stage and Screen |url=http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/137284 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210114090106/http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/137284 |archive-date=2021-01-14 |access-date=2017-03-16 |website=History News Network}}
In her memoir I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), poet Maya Angelou describes Mississippi as inhospitable to African Americans after dark: "Don't let the sun set on you here nigger, Mississippi."{{Cite book |last=Maya |first=Angelou |title=I know why the caged bird sings |publisher=Virago |year=2015 |isbn=978-0349005997 |oclc=962406229}}
Oprah Winfrey visited Forsyth County, Georgia, during a 1987 episode of her television show following the 1987 Forsyth County protests. The protests stemmed from continued racial conflict and reputation as a sundown-town area into the 1960s, following the expulsion of African Americans in the 1920s.
Trouble Behind (1991), a documentary by Robby Henson, examines the history and legacy of racism in Corbin, Kentucky, a small railroad community noteworthy both as the home of Colonel Sanders' Kentucky Fried Chicken and for "its race riots of 1919, during which over two hundred blacks were loaded onto boxcars and shipped out of town." The film aired at the 1991 Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize.{{Cite book |last=Henson |first=Robby |url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0144649 |title=Trouble Behind |date=1991 |publisher=Cicada Films |access-date=2018-06-30 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210509073011/https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0144649/ |archive-date=2021-05-09 |url-status=live}}{{Cite web |date=1991 |title=Archives 1991 Sundance Film Festival: Trouble Behind |url=http://history.sundance.org/films/652/trouble_behind |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210304003817/http://history.sundance.org/films/652/trouble_behind |archive-date=2021-03-04 |access-date=2016-01-18 |website=Sundance Institute}}{{Cite news |last=Scheiderer |first=David |date=February 17, 1992 |title=TV Reviews : A Legacy of Racism in 'Trouble Behind' |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-02-17-ca-1665-story.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210520193844/https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-02-17-ca-1665-story.html |archive-date=2021-05-20 |access-date=2016-04-26}}
No Niggers, No Jews, No Dogs (2000), a play by John Henry Redwood.{{Cite news |last=Loewen |first=James William |author-link=James W. Loewen |year=2011 |title=Sundown Towns on Stage and Screen |url=http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/137284 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210114090106/http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/137284 |archive-date=January 14, 2021 |access-date=January 15, 2019 |publisher=History News Network}}
Banished: How Whites Drove Blacks Out of Town in America (2006), a documentary by Marco Williams{{Cite book |last=Williams |first=Marco |url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0912574 |title=Banished: How Whites Drove Blacks Out of Town in America |date=2006 |publisher=Cicada Films |access-date=2018-06-30 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210308163624/https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0912574/ |archive-date=2021-03-08 |url-status=live}}{{Cite web |url=http://www.banishedthefilm.com/ |title=Banished |date=2006 |access-date=2014-02-27 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110224185824/http://www.banishedthefilm.com/ |archive-date=24 February 2011 |url-status=usurped}} that was inspired by Elliot Jaspin's book Buried in the Bitter Waters: The Hidden History of Racial Cleansing in America (2007).{{Cite book |last=Jaspin |first=Elliot |url=https://archive.org/details/buriedinbitterwa00jasp |title=Buried in the Bitter Waters: The Hidden History of Racial Cleansing in America |date=2007 |publisher=Basic Books |isbn=9780465036363 |url-access=registration}}{{Cite news |last=Maguire |first=Ellen |date=February 19, 2008 |title=PBS's 'Banished' Exposes the Tainted Past of Three White Enclaves |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/18/AR2008021802005.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121111125035/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/18/AR2008021802005.html |archive-date=November 11, 2012 |access-date=October 30, 2017 |newspaper=The Washington Post}}
Sundown Town (2011), a play by Kevin D. Cohea.
The Injustice Files: Sundown Towns (February 24, 2014), an Investigation Discovery documentary by filmmaker Keith Beauchamp, executive produced by Al Roker.{{Cite news |last=Penrice |first=Ronda Racha |date=February 25, 2014 |title='Sundown Towns' Under a Spotlight in New Investigation Discovery Documentary |url=http://thegrio.com/2014/02/25/sundown-towns-under-a-spotlight-in-new-investigation-discovery-documentary/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210410232523/https://thegrio.com/2014/02/25/sundown-towns-under-a-spotlight-in-new-investigation-discovery-documentary/ |archive-date=April 10, 2021 |access-date=July 27, 2014 |work=The Grio}}{{Cite web |date=February 14, 2014 |title=Injustice Files: Sundown Towns |url=http://www.investigationdiscovery.com/tv-shows/injustice-files/videos/al-roker-on-sundown-towns.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160326175354/http://www.investigationdiscovery.com/tv-shows/injustice-files/videos/al-roker-on-sundown-towns/ |archive-date=March 26, 2016 |access-date=July 27, 2014 |website=Investigation Discovery}}
Green Book (2018), the Academy Award winner for Best Picture, is a comedy drama about a tour of the Deep South in the 1960s by African American classical and jazz pianist Don Shirley (Mahershala Ali), who is arrested in a Southern town for being out after sundown.
In the first episode of the 2020 television series Lovecraft Country (2020) (TV series based on the 2016 book written by Matt Ruff). The protagonists embarking on a road trip across 1950s Jim Crow America are pulled over by a police officer who informs them they are in a "sundown county" and threatens that they could be lynched if they do not leave the county before sundown.{{Cite web |date=17 August 2020 |title='Lovecraft Country' Episode 1: Sundown Towns' True Story Has Fans Wondering How Racial Practice 'Still Exists' |url=https://meaww.com/lovecraft-country-episode-1-sundown-town-true-story-white-supremacy-kill-black-people-still-today |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201129184951/https://meaww.com/lovecraft-country-episode-1-sundown-town-true-story-white-supremacy-kill-black-people-still-today |archive-date=2020-11-29 |access-date=2020-08-17 |website=meaww.com |language=en}}{{Cite web |last=Dwilson |first=Stephanie Dube |date=2020-08-17 |title=Sundown Towns in Real Life: Yes Lovecraft Country's Portrayal Really Happened |url=https://heavy.com/entertainment/2020/08/sundown-towns-in-real-life-lovecraft-country/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210518135600/https://heavy.com/entertainment/2020/08/sundown-towns-in-real-life-lovecraft-country/ |archive-date=2021-05-18 |access-date=2020-08-17 |website=Heavy.com |language=en-US}}

References

External links

Rigby, David; Esposito, Michael H.; Lee, Hedwig; Van Riper, David C.; Hicken, Margaret T.; Berrey, Stephen A. (2025). "[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41597-024-04330-9 A national data set of historical US sundown towns for quantitative analysis]". Scientific Data 12 (1): 31.
{{Cite web |title=Information on racial proportions of towns in the United States |url=https://www.census.gov/prod/www/decennial.html |website=U.S. Census Bureau}}
{{Cite web |last=Loewen |first=James William |author-link=James W. Loewen |date=October 23, 2005 |title=Book Talk: Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism |url=https://www.c-span.org/video/?189492-2/sundown-towns-hidden-dimension-american-racism |website=C-SPAN Book TV}}
{{Cite web |last1=Loewen |first1=James William |author-link=James W. Loewen |last2=Cheney |first2=Matt |title=Map of Sundown Towns in the United States |url=https://justice.tougaloo.edu/sundown-towns/using-the-sundown-towns-database/state-map/}}
{{Cite book |url=https://digital.library.sc.edu/collections/the-negro-travelers-green-book-1956/ |title=The Negro Travelers' Green Book |date=Spring 1956 |publisher=University of South Carolina Library |edition=Interactive}}