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Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism
From Maine to California, thousands of communities kept out African Americans (or sometimes Chinese Americans, Jewish Americans, etc.) by force, law, or custom. These communities are sometimes called "sundown towns" because some of them posted signs at their city limits reading, typically, "Nigger, Don't Let The Sun Go Down On You In ___." Some towns are still all white on purpose. Their chilling stories have been joined more recently by the many elite (and some not so elite) suburbs like Grosse Pointe, MI, or Edina, MN, that have excluded nonwhites by "kinder gentler means." When I began this research, I expected to find about 10 sundown towns in Illinois (my home state) and perhaps 50 across the country. Instead, I have found more than 440 in Illinois and thousands across the United States. This is their story; it is the first book ever written on the topic.
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Sundown Towns in the United States
Search the Sundown Towns Database
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Read Latest Issues of The Sundown Town News
Volume 1, Number 1
Volume 1, Number 2
Volume 1, Number 3
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Population Files for Towns in Selected States
Here I share Excel files of town populations by race for selected states. Some are much more complete than others. If you develop such a file for a state not included here, or a more comprehensive file for a state that is included here, kindly email it to me and I'll post it below for other researchers to use. Thank you. My email address is jloewen@uvm.edu.
- Ohio
- Oregon
- Michigan (Detroit Metro Area)
- Michigan (outside Detroit)
- Iowa
- Illinois
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Racism Curve
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I WANT YOU TO RESEARCH
SUNDOWN TOWNS!
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Samples from Sundown Towns
The Introduction to Sundown Towns [PDF]
Sundown Town Slideshow
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