| LC control no. | sh2020006003 |
|---|---|
| Topical heading | Sundown towns |
| Variant(s) | Gray towns Sundown cities Sundown communities Sundown counties Sundown neighborhoods Sundown suburbs Sunset towns |
| See also | Cities and towns Segregation--United States |
| Scope note | Here are entered general works on all-white jurisdictions in the United States that banned people of color from remaining in, or entering, the jurisdiction after dark. This heading may be divided geographically by names of individual regions or states. Works on specific sundown towns are entered under headings of the type [place]--[topic] or [topic]--[place], e.g. [place]--Ethnic relations; Discrimination in housing--[place]. |
| Found in | Work cat: Loewen, J.W. Sundown towns, 2018: p. [vii] (sundown towns excluded African Americans, some also excluded "other groups, such as Mexican Americans, Native Americans, or Asian Americans, Jews, even Catholics and Mormons") p. [3] ("sundown towns" name comes from signs many towns formerly spotted at their corporate limits saying things like "'[N*****], Don't Let the Sun Go Down on You in ___'"; sundown towns also known as "sunset towns," or "gray towns" in the Ozarks) p. 4 ("A sundown town is any organized jurisdiction that for decades kept African Americans or other groups from living in it and was thus 'all-white' on purpose"; sundown towns achieved their all-white populations by various means: "many towns drove out their black populations, then posted sundown signs"; "other towns passed ordinances barring African Americans after dark or prohibiting them from owning or renting property"; "others established such policies by informal means, harassing and even killing those who violated the rule"; sundown towns range in size from tiny hamlets to substantial cities or even entire counties or suburbs) p. 5 ("the traditional South has almost no sundown towns") p. 6 (sundown towns "arose during a crucial era of American history, 1890-1940, when, after the gains of the Civil War and Reconstruction eras, race relations systematically grew worse"; sundown towns continue into the present) p. 9 (sundown suburbs arose later "between 1900 and 1968") p. 14 (sections of cities kept out African Americans and other groups, forming "sundown neighborhoods") p. 15 ("governments openly favored white supremacy and helped to create and maintain all-white communities" by passing exclusionary laws, enabling police "to escort black would-be residents across the county line", or "lending and insuring policies from the 1930s to the 1960s [requiring] sundown neighborhoods and suburbs") pp. 18-20 (sections of the book chronicle the history of race relations from 1890 onward, describe the mechanisms for creating sundown towns, discuss the sociology of sundown towns, describe the means for maintaining all-white communities, trace the effects of sundown towns, and discuss the present and future of sundown towns) Encyclopedia of African American history, 1896 to the present, 2009, viewed Jun. 24, 2020 Sundown Towns ("Some [sundown] towns in the West drove out their Chinese Americans even earlier, between 1885 and 1920. A few excluded Native Americans or Mexican Americans. 'Sundown suburbs' developed a little later, mostly between 1900 and 1968. Many suburbs kept out not only African Americans but also Jews"; "sundown communities"; "By 1970, when sundown towns were at their peak, more than half of all incorporated communities outside the plantation South probably excluded African Americans"; entire counties went sundown; white communities "expelled entire black communities or intimidated and kept out black would-be newcomers"; "many towns that had no African American residents passed ordinances that forbade African Americans from remaining after dark"; "suburbs used zoning and steering to keep out black would-be residents and used eminent domain to take blacks' property if they did manage to acquire a home. Some towns required developers to add a restrictive covenant to every lot deed in a new residential area") Sonneborn, L. The great Black migrations, 2010: p. 13 ("Many towns and cities passed ordinances prohibiting blacks from dwelling within their borders. Blacks were permitted to enter these areas, usually to work menial jobs, only during the day ... As a result, these all-white areas were called sunset towns") Loewen, J.W. Sundown towns and counties, in Southern cultures, v. 15, n. 1 (Spr. 2009): p. 23 ("Sundown towns are (or were) all white by design") p. 24 ("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. ... Thus, a community could still meet the definition of 'sundown town' even with a black household of two if it posted sundown signs or otherwise kept out African American newcomers") p. 25 ("Many communities kept African Americans from living in 'white' neighborhoods but were not sundown towns unless they drew their municipal boundaries to exclude the black neighborhoods entirely. Nor were sundown towns merely too costly for black residents to afford. Economics alone never kept all African Americans from living in a sundown town; premeditated racial exclusion was always a defining factor") OED online, Aug. 13, 2020: sundown town (n. U.S. (in the period of racial segregation, in certain parts of the United States) a town in which black people face intimidation, harassment, attack, or forcible expulsion if they remain overnight or go outside after sunset) |
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