A sundown town was not just a place where something racist happened, it was an entire community (or even county) that for decades was “all white” on purpose. “All white” is in quotes because some towns allowed one black family to remain when they drove out the rest. Also, institutionalized persons (in prisons, hospitals, colleges, etc.), live-in servants (in white households), and black or interracial children (in white households) did not violate the taboo.
“On purpose” did not require a formal ordinance. If, for example, a black family tried to move in, encountered considerable hostility, and left, that would qualify the town as “sundown.” Note that some sundown towns which kept out Chinese Americans, Jews, Mexican Americans, Native Americans, and even Mormons.
These all-white communities, neighborhoods, or counties excluded Black Americans and other minorities through the use of discriminatory laws, harassment, and threats or use of violence. The posted and verbal warnings issued to Blacks that although they might be allowed to work or travel in a community during the daytime, they must leave by sundown. Although it is difficult to make an accurate count, historians estimate there were up to 10,000 sundown towns in the United States between 1890 and 1960, mostly in the Mid-West and West. They began to proliferate during the Great Migration, starting in about 1910, when large numbers of African Americans left the South to escape racism and poverty. As Blacks began to migrate to other regions of the country, many predominantly white communities actively discouraged them from settling there.
The means to announce and enforce racial restrictions varied across the country. In its most blatant form, signs were posted at the city limits. One in Alix, Arkansas, in the 1930s, for instance, read, “N***er, Don’t Let the Sun Go Down On You In Alix.” Others stated, “Whites Only After Dark.” Many sundown towns used discriminatory housing covenants to ensure no non-white person would be allowed to purchase or rent a home. In the 1940s, Edmond, Oklahoma promoted itself on postcards with the slogan, “A Good Place to Live…No Negroes.” The town of Mena, Arkansas advertised its many charms: “Cool Summers, Mild Winters, No Blizzards, No Negroes.” In other cases, the policy was enforced through less formal norms and sanctions. Businesses that served Black customers or hired Black employees would be boycotted by the white townspeople, ensuring that Blacks had few, if any, job opportunities in those communities.
These towns were able to remain all-white by a variety of means. For example —“driving while black”—is no new phenomenon in sundown towns; as far back as the 1920s, police officers routinely followed and stopped black motorists or questioned them when they stopped. Suburbs used zoning and eminent domain to keep out black would be residents and to take their property if they did manage to acquire it. Some towns required all residential areas to be covered by restrictive covenants— clauses in deeds that stated, typically: No lot shall ever be sold, conveyed, leased, or rented to any person other than one of the white or Caucasian race, nor shall any lot ever be used or occupied by any person other than one of the white or Caucasian race, except such as may be serving as domestics for the owner or tenant of said lot, while said owner or tenant is residing thereon. Always, lurking under the surface, was the threat of violence or such milder white misbehavior as refusing to sell groceries or gasoline to black newcomers.
Racial exclusion in sundown towns was also achieved with violence. African Americans who lingered in sundown towns even during the daytime experienced harassment, threats, arrest, and beatings. It was not uncommon for Black motorists passing through these communities to be followed by police or local residents to the city limits. In extreme cases, hostility toward African Americans resulted in extrajudicial killing. The lynching of two Black teenagers in Marion, Indiana, in 1930, for instance, resulted in the town’s 200 Black residents moving away never to return.
The rise of sundown towns made it difficult and dangerous for Blacks to travel long distances by car. In 1930, for instance, 44 of the 89 counties along the famed Route 66 from Chicago to Los Angeles featured no motels or restaurants and prohibited Blacks from entering after dark. In response, Victor H. Green, a postal worker from Harlem, compiled the Negro Motorist Green Book, a guide to accommodations that served Black travelers. The guide was published from 1936 to 1966, and at its height of popularity was used by two million people.
The Civil Rights Movement left these towns largely untouched. Indeed, some locales in the Border States forced out their black populations in response to Brown v. Board of Education. Sheridan, Arkansas, for example, compelled its African Americans to move to neighboring Malvern in 1954 after the school board’s initial decision to comply with Brown prompted a firestorm of protest. Having no black populations, these towns and counties then had no African Americans to test their public accommodations. For 15 years after the 1964 Civil Rights Act, motels and restaurants in some sundown towns continued to exclude African Americans, thus forcing black travelers to avoid them or endure humiliating and even dangerous conditions. Today, public accommodations in sundown towns are generally open. Many towns—probably more than half—have given up their exclusionary residential policies, while others still make it uncomfortable or impossible for African Americans to live in them.
Historians have found that most sundown towns deliberately hid the means by which they became and remained all-white. Apart from oral histories, there are often few archival records that describe precisely how sundown towns excluded Blacks. Laws and policies that enforced racial exclusion have largely disappeared, but de facto sundown towns existed into the 1980s, and some may still be in evidence today.
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