A. Nelson
Sundown Towns
Sundown Towns: All White communities in the United States or Canada that intentionally exclude minorities from residing within their boundaries. The term refers to the unspoken rule that minorities need to vacate the area at sunset. These communities used a patchwork of laws, statutes, and curfews, as well as, violence, harassment, and threats to enforce their white-only policies.
Sundown towns first started occurring in 1890. By 1960 grew to roughly 10,000 known towns. Signs of “Whites only after dark.” and “Don’t let the sun go down on you in [town name].” were often posted at the boundaries as warnings. Citizens would often boycott businesses that hired or even served Black customers, making employment for minorities within the towns virtually impossible. Those found in violation of these town’s rules were often violently arrested, beaten, and even lynched as warnings for others. These communities often did not wait until sunset to enforce the laws making being in these towns at any time dangerous for minorities.
In 1893, an African American man named Samuel J. Bush was arrested for an alleged assault of a white woman in a nearby town. On June 2, 1893, he was brought to Decatur, IL. The town upon hearing of his arrival formed a mob to lynch him, without there being evidence of this assault or a hearing. The mob of over 500 stormed into the police station where they, hit him in the stomach and pushed him down the stairs, dragged him outside, and in the early hours of June 3, 1893, hung Mr. Bush. His last words were him proclaiming his innocence and that he had “Hoped to see you in heaven again.” referring to the mob. The police did nothing as Decatur was a sundown town. This is just one case from one of the thousands of towns in the 70-plus years where this was “okay” behavior and seen as necessary to keep their towns pure.
The lack of repercussions for these town’s actions and the real fear minorities lived in drove Victor Hugo Green, a New York City postal worker to publish a travel guide in 1936 to help all non-white Americans safely drive through the country called, The Negro-Motorist Green Book. The travel guide was continuously published until 1967 when the Civil Rites Act was signed into law. The later titled Green Book, named all the safe places to stay, eat, and drive through America.
Many towns today, do not like to talk about this violent and discriminatory history. Many of these sundown towns had to, begrudgingly, outwardly stop enforcing their sundown laws and overt discrimination after the Civil Rites Act was signed into law in 1967 outlawing segregation and discrimination across the nation. But even today these towns, though scarce and few, still exist. Many former sundown towns still have a minimal, if any, trace of minorities amongst their citizens even over 50 years later.
(Cheney, 2022)
References
Cheney, M. (2022, March 7). Using the Sundown Towns Database. History and Social Justice. https://justice.tougaloo.edu/sundown-towns/using-the-sundown-towns-database/
Coen, Ross. “Sundown Towns •.” Blackpast, 9 Jan. 2023, www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/sundown-towns/.
Gosner, W. (2024, January 25). Sundown Town. Encyclopædia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/place/sundown-town
Pena, O. (2023, July 12). Memory of Samuel J. Bush, Black man lynched by mob, honored by family, activists. ABC News. https://abcnews.go.com/US/samuel-bushs-legacy-continued-local-activist-family-member/story?id=99943254
