Sundown towns, also known as sunset towns, gray towns, or sundowner towns, are all-

white White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White on ...

municipalities or neighborhoods in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

that practice a form of

racial segregation Racial segregation is the systematic separation of people into race (human classification), racial or other Ethnicity, ethnic groups in daily life. Racial segregation can amount to the international crime of apartheid and a crimes against hum ...

by excluding non-whites via some combination of discriminatory local laws, intimidation or violence. The term came from signs posted that "

colored people ''Colored'' (or ''coloured'') is a racial descriptor historically used in the United States during the Jim Crow, Jim Crow Era to refer to an African Americans, African American. In many places, it may be considered a Pejorative, slur, though it ...

" had to leave town by sundown. Entire sundown

counties A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesChambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...

and sundown suburbs were also created by the same process. The practice was not restricted to the southern states, with New Jersey and other northern states being described as equally inhospitable to black travelers until at least the early 1960s. Current practices in a number of present-day towns, in the view of some commentators, perpetuate a modified version of the sundown town. Discriminatory policies and actions distinguish sundown towns from towns that have no black residents for demographic reasons. Historically, towns have been confirmed as sundown towns by newspaper articles, county histories, and

Works Progress Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, i ...

files, corroborated by tax or U.S. census records showing an absence of black people or sharp drop in the black population between two censuses.

History

The earliest legal restrictions on the nighttime activities and movements of

African Americans African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

and other ethnic minorities date back to the colonial era. The general court and legislative assembly of

New Hampshire New Hampshire is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...

passed "An Act To Prevent Disorders In The Night" in 1714: Notices emphasizing and re-affirming the curfew were published in '' The New Hampshire Gazette'' in 1764 and 1771. Following the end of the

Reconstruction era The Reconstruction era was a period in American history following the American Civil War (1861–1865) and lasting until approximately the Compromise of 1877. During Reconstruction, attempts were made to rebuild the country after the bloo ...

, thousands of towns and counties across the United States became sundown localities, as part of the imposition of

Jim Crow laws The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Other areas of the United States were affected by formal and informal policies of segregation as well, but many states outside the Sout ...

and other segregationist practices. In most cases, the exclusion was official town policy or was promulgated by the community's real estate agents via

exclusionary covenants A covenant, in its most general sense and covenant (historical), historical sense, is a solemn promise to engage in or refrain from a specified action. Under historical English common law, a covenant was distinguished from an ordinary contract b ...

governing who could buy or rent property. In others, the policy was enforced through intimidation. This intimidation could occur in a number of ways, including harassment by law enforcement officers. Though widely believed to be a thing of the past—racially restrictive covenants were struck down by the

Supreme Court A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...

in its 1948 '' Shelley v. Kraemer'' decision—many hundreds of towns continue to effectively exclude black people and other minorities in the twenty-first century. In 1844,

Oregon Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...

, which had banned slavery, banned African Americans from the territory altogether. Those who failed to leave could expect to receive lashings under a law known as the "Peter Burnett Lash Law", named for Provisional Supreme Judge

Peter Burnett Peter Hardeman Burnett (November 15, 1807May 17, 1895) was an American politician who served as the first elected Governor of California from December 20, 1849, to January 9, 1851. Burnett was elected Governor almost one year before California's ...

. No persons were ever lashed under the law; it was quickly amended to replace lashing with forced labor, and eventually repealed the following year after a change in the makeup of the legislature. However, additional laws aimed at African Americans entering Oregon were ratified in 1849 and 1857, the last of which was not repealed until 1926. This law in Oregon was the foreshadowing of future laws restricting where minorities could live, not only in Oregon but other jurisdictions. Outside Oregon, other places looked to laws and legislation to restrict black people from residing within cities, towns, and states. In 1853, all blacks were banned from entering the state of Indiana. Those who were caught in the state and unable to pay the fine were punished by being re-enslaved and sold at auction. Similar bans on all black migration were passed in Michigan, Ohio, and Iowa. New laws were enacted in the 20th century. One example is

Louisville, Kentucky Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border ...

, whose mayor proposed a law in 1911 that would restrict black people from owning property in certain parts of the city. This city ordinance reached public attention when it was challenged in the

U.S. Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

case ''

Buchanan v. Warley ''Buchanan v. Warley'', 245 U.S. 60 (1917), is a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States addressed civil government-instituted racial segregation in residential areas. The Court held unanimously that a Louisville, Kentucky city ordin ...

'' in 1917. Ultimately, the court decided that the laws passed in Louisville were unconstitutional, thus setting the legal precedent that similar laws could not exist or be passed in the future. This one legal victory did not stop towns from developing into sundown towns. City planners and real estate companies used their power and authority to ensure that white communities remained white, and black communities remained black. These were private individuals making decisions to personally benefit themselves, their companies' profits, or their cities' alleged safety, so their methods in creating sundown towns were often ignored by the courts. In addition to unfair housing rules, citizens turned to violence and harassment in making sure black people would not remain in their cities after sundown. Whites in the North felt that their way of life was threatened by the increased minority populations moving into their neighborhoods and racial tensions started to build. This often boiled over into violence, sometimes extreme, such as the 1943 Detroit race riot. Since the

civil rights movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...

of the 1950s and 1960s, and especially since the

Fair Housing Act of 1968 The Civil Rights Act of 1968 () is a landmark law in the United States signed into law by United States President Lyndon B. Johnson during the King assassination riots. Titles II through VII comprise the Indian Civil Rights Act, which applie ...

's prohibition of

racial discrimination Racial discrimination is any discrimination against any individual on the basis of their skin color, race or ethnic origin.Individuals can discriminate by refusing to do business with, socialize with, or share resources with people of a certain g ...

in the sale, rental, and financing of housing, the number of sundown towns has decreased. However, as sociologist

James W. Loewen James William Loewen (February 6, 1942August 19, 2021) was an American sociologist, historian, and author. He was best known for his 1995 book, '' Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong''. Early life Loewen ...

writes in his book, ''Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism'' (2005), it is impossible to precisely count the number of sundown towns at any given time, because most towns have not kept records of the ordinances or signs that marked the town's sundown status. He further notes that hundreds of cities across America have been sundown towns at some point in their history. Additionally, Loewen writes that sundown status meant more than just that African Americans were unable to live in these towns. Any black people who entered or were found in sundown towns after sunset were subject to harassment, threats, and violence, including

lynching Lynching is an extrajudicial killing by a group. It is most often used to characterize informal public executions by a mob in order to punish an alleged transgressor, punish a convicted transgressor, or intimidate people. It can also be an ex ...

. The Supreme Court case ''

Brown v. Board of Education ''Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka'', 347 U.S. 483 (1954), was a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segrega ...

'' ruled segregation of schools unconstitutional in 1954. Loewen argues that the case caused some municipalities in the South to become sundown towns:

Missouri Missouri is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee ...

Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...

, and

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia to ...

saw drastic drops in African-American populations living in those states following the decision.

Function

Ethnic exclusions

African Americans were not the only minority group not allowed to live in white towns. One example, according to Loewen, is that in 1870, Chinese people made up one-third of

Idaho Idaho ( ) is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. To the north, it shares a small portion of the Canada–United States border with the province of British Columbia. It borders the states of Montana and Wyom ...

's population. Following a wave of violence and an 1886 anti-Chinese convention in

Boise Boise (, , ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Idaho and is the county seat of Ada County. On the Boise River in southwestern Idaho, it is east of the Oregon border and north of the Nevada border. The downtown area' ...

, almost none remained by 1910. The towns of

Minden, Nevada Minden is a census-designated place (CDP) in Douglas County, Nevada, United States. The population was 3,001 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Douglas County and is adjacent to the town of Gardnerville. The Douglas campus of the Wes ...

, and

Gardnerville, Nevada Gardnerville is an unincorporated town in Douglas County, Nevada, adjacent to the county seat of Minden. The population was 6,211 at the time of th2020 Census U.S. Route 395 runs through the center of Gardnerville. State Route 207, known as ...

, had an ordinance from 1917 to 1974 that required Native Americans to leave the towns by 6:30 p.m. each day. A whistle, later a siren, was sounded at 6 p.m. daily alerting Native Americans to leave by sundown. In 2021, the state of Nevada passed a law prohibiting the appropriation of Native American imagery by the mascots of schools, and the sounding of sirens that were once associated with Sundown ordinances. Despite this law, Minden has continued to play its siren, claiming it as being a nightly tribute to first responders. In Nevada, the ban was expanded to include

Japanese Americans are Americans of Japanese ancestry. Japanese Americans were among the three largest Asian American ethnic communities during the 20th century; but, according to the 2000 census, they have declined in number to constitute the sixth largest Asi ...

. Two examples of the numerous road signs documented during the first half of the 20th century include: * In Colorado: "No Mexicans After Night". * In Connecticut: "Whites Only Within City Limits After Dark". In Maria Marulanda's 2011 article in the ''

Fordham Law Review The ''Fordham Law Review'' is a student-run law journal associated with the Fordham University School of Law that covers a wide range of legal scholarship. Overview In 2017, the ''Fordham Law Review'' was the seventh-most cited law journal by ...

'' titled "Preemption, Patchwork Immigration Laws, and the Potential for Brown Sundown Towns", Marulanda outlines the possibility for non-blacks to be excluded from towns in the United States. Marulanda argued that immigration laws and ordinances in certain municipalities could create similar situations to those experienced by African Americans in sundown towns. Hispanic Americans are likely to suffer, despite the purported target being undocumented immigrants, in these cases of racial exclusion. From 1851 to at least 1876,

Antioch, California Antioch is the third-largest city in Contra Costa County, California, United States. Located in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area along the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta. The city's population was 115,291 at the 2020 Unite ...

, had a sundown ordinance that barred Chinese residents from being out in public after dark. In 1876, white residents drove the Chinese out of town and then burned down the Chinatown section of the city.

Chinese Americans Chinese Americans are Americans of Han Chinese ancestry. Chinese Americans constitute a subgroup of East Asian Americans which also constitute a subgroup of Asian Americans. Many Chinese Americans along with their ancestors trace lineage from ...

were also excluded from most of San Francisco, leading to the establishment of

Chinatown A Chinatown () is an ethnic enclave of Chinese people located outside Greater China, most often in an urban setting. Areas known as "Chinatown" exist throughout the world, including Europe, North America, South America, Asia, Africa and Austra ...

Travel guides

Described by former

NAACP The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E.&nb ...

President

Julian Bond Horace Julian Bond (January 14, 1940 – August 15, 2015) was an American social activist, leader of the civil rights movement, politician, professor, and writer. While he was a student at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, during the e ...

as "one of the survival tools of segregated life",{{cite news , last=Kelly , first=Kate , date=March 8, 2014 , orig-year=January 6, 2014 , title=The Green Book: The First Travel Guide for African-Americans Dates to the 1930s , work=Huffington Post , url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kate-kelly/the-green-book-the-first_b_4549962.html ''

The Negro Motorist Green Book ''The Negro Motorist Green Book'' (also ''The Negro Motorist Green-Book'', ''The Negro Travelers' Green Book'', or simply the ''Green Book'') was an annual guidebook for African American roadtrippers. It was originated and published by Afri ...

'' (at times titled ''The Negro Traveler's Green Book'' or ''The Negro Motorist Green-Book'', and commonly referred to simply as the "Green Book") was an annual segregation-era guidebook for African American motorists, published by New York travel agent and former

Hackensack, New Jersey Hackensack is a city in and the county seat of Bergen County, New Jersey, United States.New Jers ...

, letter carrier Victor H. Green. It was published in the United States from 1936 to 1966, during the

Jim Crow The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Other areas of the United States were affected by formal and informal policies of segregation as well, but many states outside the Sout ...

era, when discrimination against non-whites was widespread. Road trips for African Americans were fraught with inconveniences and dangers because of racial segregation, racial profiling by police, the phenomenon of travelers just "disappearing", and the existence of numerous sundown towns. According to author Kate Kelly, "there were at least 10,000 'sundown towns' in the United States as late as the 1960s; in a 'sundown town' nonwhites had to leave the city limits by dusk, or they could be picked up by the police or worse. These towns were not limited to the South—they ranged from Levittown, N.Y., to Glendale, Calif., and included the majority of municipalities in

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...

." The Green Book also advised drivers to wear, or have ready, a chauffeur's cap and, if stopped, relate that "they were delivering a car for a white person." On June 7, 2017, the NAACP issued a warning to prospective African American travelers to Missouri. This is the first NAACP warning ever covering an entire state. The NAACP conference president suggested that, if prospective African American travelers must go to Missouri, they travel with

bail Bail is a set of pre-trial restrictions that are imposed on a suspect to ensure that they will not hamper the judicial process. Bail is the conditional release of a defendant with the promise to appear in court when required. In some countries ...

money in hand.

Sundown suburbs

Many suburban areas in the United States were incorporated following the establishment of

. The majority of suburbs were made up of all white residents from the time they were first created. Harassment and inducements contributed to keep African Americans out of new suburban areas. Schooling also played a large role in keeping the suburbs white. The suburbs often did not provide schools for black people, causing black families to send their children to school in large municipalities such as

Atlanta, Georgia Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

. {{citation needed, date=May 2021

In the 21st century

In 2019, sociologist Heather O'Connell wrote that sundown towns are "(primarily) a thing of the past",{{cite journal , last1=O'Connell , first1=Heather A. , title=Historical Shadows: The Links between Sundown Towns and Contemporary Black–White Inequality , journal=Sociology of Race and Ethnicity , date=3 April 2018 , volume=5 , issue=3 , pages=311–325 , doi=10.1177/2332649218761979 , s2cid=158248806 , url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2332649218761979 , access-date=19 January 2021 but writer

Morgan Jerkins Morgan Jerkins (born 1992) is an American writer and editor. Her debut book, ''This Will Be My Undoing'' (2018), a collection of nonfiction essays, was a ''New York Times'' bestseller. Her second book, ''Wandering in Strange Lands'', was released ...

disagreed, saying: "Sundown towns have never gone away."{{cite news , last1=Newton , first1=Kamilah , title=What are 'sundown towns'? Historically all-white towns in America see renewed scrutiny thanks to 'Lovecraft Country' , url=https://news.yahoo.com/what-are-sundown-towns-historically-allwhite-towns-in-america-see-renewed-scrutiny-230321396.html , access-date=19 January 2021 , work=Yahoo! News , date=August 25, 2020 Historian James W. Loewen notes persisting effects of sundown towns' violently enforced segregation even after they may have been integrated to a small degree, a phenomenon he calls "second-generation sundown towns." For example,

Ferguson, Missouri Ferguson is a city in St. Louis County, Missouri, United States. It is part of the Greater St. Louis metropolitan area. Per the 2020 census, the population was 18,527. History What is now the city of Ferguson was founded in 1855, when William B ...

was never a sundown city, but its black population dwindled to only 15 while the total population grew to over 22,000 by 1960 and the black population in nearby areas grew substantially. In 2018, four out of six Ferguson city councilors were black, and the police department was much more diverse. A consent decree had prohibited racial profiling. The terms of the consent decree prohibited activities that would categorize Ferguson as a second-generation sundown city. As of 2020, the consent decree has only been partially implemented, leaving Ferguson's status as a second-generation sundown city unclear. In response to an increase in violent crime,

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

enacted a 6:00 pm curfew for youths in May 2022 at

Millennium Park Millennium Park is a public park located in the Loop community area of Chicago, operated by the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs. The park, opened in 2004 and intended to celebrate the third millennium, is a prominent civic center nea ...

.{{cite web, accessdate=2022-06-17, title=Chicago curfew tightened after killing near 'Bean' sculpture, url=https://apnews.com/article/shootings-chicago-d3befdf74121a91d70137b3b17fdd1b8, date=16 May 2022, website=AP NEWS The

American Civil Liberties Union The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". T ...

of Illinois said the curfew would result in "unnecessary stops and arrests" of young blacks, and Chicago Alderman

Roderick Sawyer Roderick Terrance Sawyer (born April 12, 1963) is an American politician and the current alderman of the 6th ward located in Chicago, Illinois, United States. In addition to serving as alderman, Sawyer is currently the Chairman of the Health and H ...

said the curfew was "discriminatory" and would make black children feel "they don’t belong in certain parts" of Chicago.

Sundown towns in popular culture

{{In popular culture, section, date=September 2020 * ''

Gentleman's Agreement A gentlemen's agreement, or gentleman's agreement, is an informal and legally non-binding agreement between two or more parties. It is typically oral, but it may be written or simply understood as part of an unspoken agreement by convention or th ...

'' (1947), is known as "the only feature film f its erato treat sundown towns seriously."{{rp, 14 However, it dealt with a town that excluded Jewish people rather than black people. "The anti-Nazi ideology opened more sundown suburbs to Jews than to African Americans... ''Gentleman's Agreement'',

Elia Kazan Elia Kazan (; born Elias Kazantzoglou ( el, Ηλίας Καζαντζόγλου); September 7, 1909 – September 28, 2003) was an American film and theatre director, producer, screenwriter and actor, described by ''The New York Times'' as "one o ...

's 1948 Academy Award-winning movie

xposed ''Xposed'' () is the third studio album by Chinese singer G.E.M. Gloria Tang Sze-wing (born 16 August 1991), professionally known as G.E.M. (backronym of Get Everybody Moving) or Tang Tsz-kei (), is a Hong Kong singer-songwriter original ...

Darien, Connecticut Darien ( ) is a coastal town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. With a population of 21,499 and a land area of just under 13 square miles, it is the smallest town on Connecticut's Gold Coast. It has the youngest population of any ...

, as an anti-Jewish sundown town."{{rp, 394 * ''

The Fugitive Kind ''The Fugitive Kind'' is a 1960 American drama film starring Marlon Brando, Anna Magnani, and Joanne Woodward, directed by Sidney Lumet. The screenplay by Meade Roberts and Tennessee Williams was based on the latter's 1957 play ''Orpheus Des ...

'' (1959), a film directed by

Sidney Lumet Sidney Arthur Lumet ( ; June 25, 1924 – April 9, 2011) was an American film director. He was nominated five times for the Academy Award: four for Best Director for ''12 Angry Men'' (1957), ''Dog Day Afternoon'' (1975), ''Network'' (1976), ...

and starring

Marlon Brando Marlon Brando Jr. (April 3, 1924 – July 1, 2004) was an American actor. Considered one of the most influential actors of the 20th century, he received numerous accolades throughout his career, which spanned six decades, including two Academ ...

and

Anna Magnani Anna Maria Magnani (; 7 March 1908 – 26 September 1973) was an Italian actress.Obituary ''Variety'', 3 October 1973, pg. 47 She was known for her explosive acting and earthy, realistic portrayals of characters. Born in Rome, she worked her ...

, mentions sundown towns. A Southern sheriff tells Brando's character about a sign in the small town that reads, "Nigger, don't let the sun go down on you in this county." The same sign is shown in

Tennessee Williams Thomas Lanier Williams III (March 26, 1911 – February 25, 1983), known by his pen name Tennessee Williams, was an American playwright and screenwriter. Along with contemporaries Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller, he is considered among the thre ...

's play ''

Orpheus Descending ''Orpheus Descending'' is a three-act play by Tennessee Williams. It was first presented on Broadway on March 17, 1957 but had only a brief run (68 performances) and modest success. It was revived on Broadway in 1989, directed by Peter Hall an ...

'', upon which the film is based.{{Cite web, url=http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/137284, title=Sundown Towns on Stage and Screen, website=

History News Network History News Network (HNN) at George Washington University is a platform for historians writing about current events. History History News Network (HNN) is a non-profit corporation registered in Washington DC. HNN was founded by Richard Shenkman ...

, access-date=2017-03-16 * In her memoir ''

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings ''I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings'' is a 1969 autobiography describing the young and early years of American writer and poet Maya Angelou. The first in a seven-volume series, it is a coming-of-age story that illustrates how strength of charact ...

'' (1969), poet

Maya Angelou Maya Angelou ( ; born Marguerite Annie Johnson; April 4, 1928 – May 28, 2014) was an American memoirist, popular poet, and civil rights activist. She published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, several books of poetry, and ...

describes Mississippi as inhospitable to African Americans after dark: "Don't let the sun set on you here nigger, Mississippi." *

Oprah Winfrey Oprah Gail Winfrey (; born Orpah Gail Winfrey; January 29, 1954), or simply Oprah, is an American talk show host, television producer, actress, author, and philanthropist. She is best known for her talk show, ''The Oprah Winfrey Show'', br ...

visited

Forsyth County, Georgia Forsyth County ( or ) is a County (United States), county in the north-central portion of the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. Suburban and exurban in character, Forsyth County lies within the Atlanta Metropolitan Area. The county ...

, on a 1987 episode of her television show. At the beginning of the 20th century, the county was known for its expulsion of African Americans. * ''Trouble Behind'' (1991), a documentary by

Robby Henson Robby Henson is an American director and screenwriter. Biography Robby Henson began his directing career at Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. Henson is now a skilled film and documentary maker. He writes and directs all his films, ...

, examines the history and legacy of racism in

Corbin, Kentucky Corbin is a home rule in the United States, home rule-class list of Kentucky cities, city in Whitley County, Kentucky, Whitley, Knox County, Kentucky, Knox and Laurel County, Kentucky, Laurel counties in the southeastern portion of the U.S. stat ...

, a small railroad community noteworthy both as the home of

Colonel Sanders Colonel Harland David Sanders (September 9, 1890 December 16, 1980) was an American businessman, best known for founding fast food chicken restaurant chain KFC, Kentucky Fried Chicken (also known as KFC) and later acting as the company's brand ...

Kentucky Fried Chicken KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) is an American fast food restaurant chain headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky, that specializes in fried chicken. It is the world's second-largest restaurant chain (as measured by sales) after McDonald's, with 2 ...

and for "its race riots of 1919, during which over two hundred blacks were loaded onto boxcars and shipped out of town." The film aired at the 1991

Sundance Film Festival The Sundance Film Festival (formerly Utah/US Film Festival, then US Film and Video Festival) is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with more than 46,66 ...

and was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize. * '' No Niggers, No Jews, No Dogs'' (2000), a play by John Henry Redwood.{{cite news , title=Sundown Towns on Stage and Screen , first=James William , last=Loewen , author-link=James W. Loewen , year=2011 , publisher=

, access-date=January 15, 2019, url=http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/137284 * '' Banished: How Whites Drove Blacks Out of Town in America'' (2006), a documentary by

Marco Williams Marco Williams is a documentary filmmaker and professor of film production at Northwestern University. His films have received several awards, including the Gotham Documentary Achievement Award for Two Towns of Jasper'' and he has been nominated ...

which was inspired by Elliot Jaspin's book ''Buried in the Bitter Waters: The Hidden History of Racial Cleansing in America'' (2007). * ''Sundown Town'' (2011), a play by Kevin D. Cohea. * '' The Injustice Files: Sundown Towns'' (February 24, 2014), an

Investigation Discovery Investigation Discovery (stylized and branded on-air as ID since 2008) is an American multinational pay television network dedicated to true crime documentaries owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. As of February 2015, approximately 86 million Ameri ...

documentary by filmmaker Keith Beauchamp, executive produced by

Al Roker Albert Lincoln Roker Jr. (born August 20, 1954) is an American weather presenter, journalist, television personality, and author. He is the current weather anchor on NBC's '' Today'', and occasionally co-hosts '' 3rd Hour Today''. He has an in ...

. * The 2016 video game ''

Mafia III ''Mafia III'' is a 2016 action-adventure video game developed by Hangar 13 and published by 2K Games. It was released in October 2016 for PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One, in May 2017 for macOS, and in October 2021 for Google Stadia. It is ...

'' released a

downloadable content Downloadable content (DLC) is additional content created for an already released video game, distributed through the Internet by the game's publisher. It can either be added for no extra cost or it can be a form of video game monetization, enablin ...

story pack titled ''Faster, Baby'', which sees African American protagonist Lincoln Clay assist a black rights activist group in taking down a sheriff enforcing a sundown policy in a small

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...

parish. * '' Green Book'' (2018), the Academy Award winner for Best Picture, is a

comedy drama Comedy drama, also known by the portmanteau ''dramedy'', is a genre of dramatic works that combines elements of comedy and Drama (film and television), drama. The modern, scripted-television examples tend to have more humorous bits than simple co ...

about a tour of the

Deep South The Deep South or the Lower South is a cultural and geographic subregion in the Southern United States. The term was first used to describe the states most dependent on plantations and slavery prior to the American Civil War. Following the war ...

in the 1960s by African American classical and jazz pianist

Don Shirley Donald Walbridge Shirley (January 29, 1927 – April 6, 2013) was an American classical and jazz pianist and composer. He recorded many albums for Cadence Records during the 1950s and 1960s, experimenting with jazz with a classical influenc ...

(

Mahershala Ali Mahershala Ali (; born Mahershalalhashbaz Gilmore, February 16, 1974) is an American actor. He has received multiple accolades, including two Academy Awards, a Golden Globe Award and a Primetime Emmy Award. ''Time'' magazine named him one of th ...

), who is arrested in a Southern town for being out after sundown. * 2018 documentary '' Man on Fire'' about the 2014 self-immolation of anti-racist social justice pastor Charles Moore in

Grand Saline, Texas Grand Saline is a city in Van Zandt County, Texas, United States, located in East Texas. The population was 3,136 as of 2010. Grand Saline is the third largest city in Van Zandt County and is located roughly 75 miles (120 km) east of Dallas an ...

, who was native to the town. * ''

Lovecraft Country Lovecraft Country is a term coined for the New England setting used by H. P. Lovecraft in many of his weird fiction stories, which combines real and fictitious locations. This setting has since been elaborated on by other writers working in the ...

'' (2020) (TV series based on the 2016 book written by

Matt Ruff Matt may refer to: *Matt (name), people with the given name ''Matt'' or Matthew, meaning "gift from God", or the surname Matt *In British English, of a surface: having a non-glossy finish, see gloss (material appearance) *Matt, Switzerland, a mu ...

). Atticus Freeman joins up with his friend Letitia and his Uncle George to embark on a road trip across 1950s Jim Crow America in search of his missing father. In the first episode of the first season, the trio is pulled over by a police officer who informs them they are in a "sundown county" and then threatens to lynch them unless they can leave the county before sundown. Uncle George also wrote and published his own version of the Negro Motorist Green Book. {{Cite web, last=Dwilson, first=Stephanie Dube, date=2020-08-17, title=Sundown Towns in Real Life: Yes Lovecraft Country's Portrayal Really Happened, url=https://heavy.com/entertainment/2020/08/sundown-towns-in-real-life-lovecraft-country/, access-date=2020-08-17, website=Heavy.com, language=en-US * American rapper

Vince Staples Vincent Jamal Staples (born July 2, 1993) is an American rapper and singer. Staples was once a close associate of Odd Future, Mike G and Earl Sweatshirt in particular. He is currently signed to Motown and Blacksmith Records. Staples rose to ...

raps about the subject in the song "Sundown Town" on his self titled album.

References

{{reflist, 2

External links

{{commons category, Sundown town * {{cite web, url=https://www.census.gov/prod/www/decennial.html, title=Information on racial proportions of towns in the United States, website= U.S. Census Bureau * {{cite web, url=https://www.c-span.org/video/?189492-2/sundown-towns-hidden-dimension-american-racism , website= C-SPAN Book TV , first=James William , last=Loewen , author-link=James W. Loewen , title=Book Talk: ''Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism'', date= October 23, 2005 * {{cite web, url=https://justice.tougaloo.edu/sundown-towns/using-the-sundown-towns-database/state-map/, url-status=live, first1=James William, last1=Loewen, author-link1=James W. Loewen, first2=Matt, last2=Cheney, title=Map of Sundown Towns in the United States * {{cite book, url=https://delphi.tcl.sc.edu/library/digital/collections/greenbookmap.html, edition=Interactive, date=Spring 1956, title=The Negro Travelers' Green Book, publisher= The University of South Carolina Library {{Lynching in the United States {{DEFAULTSORT:Sundown Town African-American history of Oregon American phraseology History of African-American civil rights History of racial segregation in the United States History of racism in the United States Racially motivated violence against African Americans Types of towns White supremacy in the United States