How many of you are familiar with the term "Sundown Towns"? (neighborhoods, best schools)

[kshe95girl]

Theres a community not very far from where I am, its out in the Ocala National Forest, Hog Valley.
The denizens of this community are proud of the fact that they are still a sundown town.

[SonySegaTendo617]

I first heard about this term from either my dad or younger brother, I'd guess about 5-8(?) years ago. He went to Earlham College in east-central Indiana(specifically, Richmond), and told me that some towns in Indiana and Ohio were once sundown towns. Think he learned which ones were that from his classmates at Earlham, though I unfortunately can't remember any of the ones he mentioned to me.

My dad grew up in a central Georgia town northeast of Macon(but also not too far from Milledgeville), and I wouldn't be surprised if decades ago, some of the towns surrounding it(Eatonton, GA) were sundown towns. Something makes me think Milledgeville(being the biggest community for several counties around it, and IIRC, the Census calls it a 'micropolitan' area) was never a sundown town, though. Eatonton had a decent black population(10-20%?) from when my dad grew up(and that part of town is still predominantly black today), and something makes me think that it was never a sundown town in the 40s and 50s. My dad told me though that there were some(and still are to this day) towns that were predominantly black in central Georgia(namely Sparta, but he told me of a few others as well), so I wouldn't be surprised if many central Georgia blacks worked in sundown towns, but say they would live in towns like Sparta. My recollection of this makes me want to have another talk with dad later this week about central Georgia history, since I just love learned about anything history-related, in general.

danielj72 made an interesting point in his post, since something has always made me suspect(though I'm not sure, since I've never been able to spend as much time in the South as I'd ultimately like to one day) that blacks in the South are less racist than ones in the Midwest. Only 4 years ago in 2007, I was briefly traveling through a predominantly black south side neighborhood in Chicago while on a tour of jazz/blues bars, and our trolley briefly went through a part of the Chatham neighborhood(pretty sure that's the correct neighborhood) somewhere along 79th St, and got stopped at a light. While waiting for the light to turn green, there was this group of 2-3 creepy blacks that were randomly walking on 79th, and immediately yelled a good bit of racist white insults at our trolley for about 15-20 seconds, since they immediately noticed that most people on the trolley were white. Never mind that there were a decent bit of black or Asians(slightly more blacks than Asians, though) on our trolley, and I think there might've been a much lesser number of Hispanics(2-3?) on our trolley as well. IIRC, our trolley was made up of somewhere around 50-66% white participants, and we didn't(thankfully) have ONE problem(or any dirty looks) from any of the bar/club regulars at any of the south side jazz/blues clubs we hit up on our tour.

[blkgiraffe]

I think these towns are still pretty significant in the Midwest aren't they?? Lots of sundown towns in the south have shedded the image and integrated their populations.

[ckhthankgod]

Originally Posted by jluke65780

I think these towns are still pretty significant in the Midwest aren't they?? Lots of sundown towns in the south have shedded the image and integrated their populations.

I don't know.....There are probably some examples still prevalent in the South too. I gave one earlier about Eastern TN, according to a guy I met in the Army. So, who knows?

[blkgiraffe]

Originally Posted by ckhthankgod

I don't know.....There are probably some examples still prevalent in the South too. I gave one earlier about Eastern TN, according to a guy I met in the Army. So, who knows?

There probably is, but I'd say it's more prominent in the Midwest because the large black population spread through the southern states have help get rid of lots of these towns.

[ckhthankgod]

Originally Posted by jluke65780

There probably is, but I'd say it's more prominent in the Midwest because the large black population spread through the southern states have help get rid of lots of these towns.

True.....I've only heard of a couple of possibilities NY.

[GunnerTHB]

Anna, Illinois. (A)in't (n)o (n)****** (a)llowed.

[Nineties Flava]

Yup... they had (and arguably have) some right in the bay area. The most notorious one was San Leandro back in the 70's and 80's, which is ironic because its now one of the most diverse cities in the bay. Can you say white flight? lol. The entire peninsula used to be one giant sundown town too.


There's plenty of places where I would never be caught dead at night as a YBM (young black male) right now... parts of Marin County, the south bay and the outer east bay are still like that.


And I can vouch for a lot of Indiana being sundown town country. IN is by far the most racist state I've ever had the displeasure of setting foot in.

[The_gateway]

I learned of the term years ago. Today that sort of upfront racsim wouldn't fly. However, today we have such muted racism, discrimination that flies under the radar that still exists.
Thing is, lots of towns are still segregated, whether people want to think so or not. Most of us are still separated by our economic or racial barriers. Where I live, you can drive through an area and just know the kind of people that live there.
There are still systems in place today to make sure certain people don't move into certain areas, it's just not front and centre.

[Dayton Sux]

I've heard about places like that in Kentucky.