The true story of America’s sundown towns, which forbade Black people from entering after dark. The HBO series Lovecraft Country, which references the dark and racist history of the United States, drew a lot of attention to “sundown towns” last August. According to the series, three Black travelers drive through 1950s America and arrive in a sundown town, where they are immediately pulled over by a cop, which is based on a novel of the same name. If they don’t leave before sundown, the cop threatens them with death.
The scene resurrected debates about the tumultuous history of sundown towns and how some still exist in various forms. Sundown towns existed in the United States from 1890 to the post-Jim Crow era. Then, they were all-white communities or counties that used discriminatory laws, threats, harassment, or violence to keep Black people and other minorities out.
Sundown towns were named after the fact that Black people were allowed to enter these all-white communities during the day to work or shop but had to leave by nightfall.
“There were thousands of these sundown communities,” author Candacy Taylor told WBUR. “Most of them were predominant in the Midwest, West, and North.” “Most people think the problem is in the South, but that wasn’t the case.”
After slavery was abolished in the United States, many Southern white legislators enacted discriminatory policies, ushering in the Jim Crow era. As a result, trains, buses, schools, and other public facilities were segregated. Around the same time, a slew of new sundown towns popped up. However, as previously stated, these sundown towns were not limited to the South.
Large numbers of Black people left the South during the Great Migration, which began around 1910, to escape racism and poverty. Many people relocated to the North, Midwest, and West in the hopes of finding a better life in other parts of the country. They were, however, mistaken. According to history, as more and more Black people began to migrate to other parts of the country, many predominantly White towns began to use discriminatory laws and other means to keep Black people out.
The exact number of sundown towns in the United States is unknown, but historians estimate that between 1890 and 1960, there were up to 10,000 sundown towns across the country, with the majority of them in the Mid-West and West. At the city limits of many sundown towns, signs were posted. For example, in the 1930s, one of Alix, Arkansas, signs read, “N—-r, Don’t Let the Sun Go Down On You In Alix.” “Whites Only After Dark” was posted in other towns.
According to BlackPast, some sundown towns also used discriminatory housing covenants to ensure that no Black person could buy or rent a home. For example, Mena, Arkansas, advertised “Cool Summers, Mild Winters, No Blizzards, No Negroes.” There have also been reports of White residents arresting, slapping, or killing Black people who passed through these sundown towns but did not leave after dark.
Of course, there were sundown towns in the North, Midwest, and West that didn’t have signs warning Black people to stay out but instead used violence to enforce racial restrictions. Two Black teenagers were lynched in Marion, Indiana, in 1930, forcing the town’s Black residents, who numbered around 200, to flee. After a Black man escaped from prison in Vienna, Illinois, in the 1950s, a white mob took to the streets. Many Black homes were set on fire by the mob, forcing residents to flee.
White residents in some sundown towns also boycotted businesses that hired Black employees or served Black customers. In addition, black motorists passing through such towns were sometimes pursued by police or residents to the city limits.
“The sundown town was really a way for the North and West to patrol and monitor race without having to put up dirty signs like ‘colored only’ or ‘whites only,'” Taylor explained. “It’s almost a covert operation because there would only be Mone sign at the county line saying ‘N-word, don’t let the sun set on you here,'” says the author.
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As the sunset on the towns, Black people and Black travelers seeking to tour the United States found it difficult to travel long distances, particularly by car. For example, according to BlackPast, 44 of the 89 counties along Route 66 from Chicago to Los Angeles had no motels or restaurants in 1930, and Blacks were prohibited from entering after dark.
Due to these difficulties, Victor H. Green, a Harlem postal worker, wrote The Negro Motorist Green Book to assist Black people or travelers find safe places to stay, shop, and eat while on the road. The book was printed from 1936 to 1967 and used by two million people.
In 2005, sociologist James Loewen researched and published “Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism,” which he describes as “the world’s only registry of sundown towns.”
During his research, Loewen discovered that many of the sundown towns had burned their signs and that there is no official record that they ever existed. Sundown towns are just like any other town in America, to Taylor.
“I’ve been to a couple that still seem to hold on to their racist heritage, and they have a lot of white supremacist groups,” said the author, who has spent time documenting Green Book sites and researching how Black Americans can travel safely across the United States in 2021. According to her, some towns, such as Harrison, Arkansas, still have Confederate flags and “big, scary signs,.”
