Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension Of American Racism by James W. Loewen
Authors: James W. Loewen
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years. The next chapter tells of that mystification. It explains how most Americans came to be ignorant about even the sheer fact of their existence. It also summarizes the methods I used, so you can assess my claims to have proven that these towns do exist and were all-white on purpose.
8
Hidden in Plain View: Knowing and Not Knowing About Sundown Towns
Local persons giving quotes to the newspaper should be more careful in the wording of such statements to prevent misinterpretation.... The Chamber, through this committee, [shall] keep a close watch on future news reporting and take any appropriate action should further detriment to the City of Rogers be detected.
—Report of Rogers, Arkansas, Chamber of Commerce after the Rogers newspaper stated in 1962 that Rogers was a sundown town 1
B ARRING AN OCCASIONAL NEWS STORY about an individual all-white town—typically treated as an anomaly—America’s independent sundown towns, numbering in the thousands, have mostly escaped notice until now. Even the origin myths that whites used to explain such towns’ racial policies rarely got written down. Sundown suburbs, equally plentiful and concentrated around major cities, could not escape notice, but their whiteness was often dismissed as “natural,” resulting from market forces. As I tell audiences how sundown towns and suburbs were created, sometimes they gasp audibly, astonished to learn that there are so many sundown towns and suburbs, that these towns were created intentionally, often by violent means, and sometimes that they themselves live in one.
White residents do know the racial composition of their town, of course; it may even be a reason why they chose to move there. But most haven’t thought about how it came to be so white; it just seemed natural. Afterward, audience members often come up to tell me that their town or suburb is all-white or was until recently. Now they are curious: could it be that way on purpose? As one person from a sundown town near Champaign, Illinois, put it: “How naive I was growing up! I was in a sundown town and had no clue until now. Sad!” 2
A Conspiracy of Silence
Deliberate suppression has also played a role in keeping sundown towns hidden. This seems to be true in Myakka City, Florida, a small town twenty miles inland from Sarasota. By 1920, African Americans had built two churches and made up more than a third of the town’s population. “But just 20 years later,” according to Tampa Tribune reporter Roberta Nelson, writing in 2001, “blacks had vanished from Myakka City.” Myakka resident Melissa Sue Brewer wrote, “Myakka City ‘historians’ have erased all mention of African-Americans.” Suppressing the memory was hard because the expulsion apparently took place in the late 1930s, recent enough that oral history can still be done. Nelson interviewed one white woman, Marilyn Coker, who moved to Myakka City when she was eight; her late husband, a Myakka native,
remembered when the Negroes left, and how upset everyone was about it. The [white] people were upset that they were made to leave town. It was a vigilante kind of thing. Most of the people who lived here were not a part of it. But, all of a sudden, one day they were all gone.
Of course, not all white people were upset; some were the “vigilantes.” Other Myakka City old-timers remembered specific African American individuals, such as “Preacher Harper, who was ordered to leave on short notice and denied time to sell off his hogs and chickens.” Oral history on the disappeared black community may yet bring the full story to light. 15
“It just breaks my heart to see my town appear in your book,” said a librarian in West Frankfort, Illinois, in 2002, a feeling I heard repeated in many other sundown towns. This sentiment causes many residents who are ashamed to be living in all-white communities to hide the nature of their community from outsiders. Residents of
8
Hidden in Plain View: Knowing and Not Knowing About Sundown Towns
Local persons giving quotes to the newspaper should be more careful in the wording of such statements to prevent misinterpretation.... The Chamber, through this committee, [shall] keep a close watch on future news reporting and take any appropriate action should further detriment to the City of Rogers be detected.
—Report of Rogers, Arkansas, Chamber of Commerce after the Rogers newspaper stated in 1962 that Rogers was a sundown town 1
B ARRING AN OCCASIONAL NEWS STORY about an individual all-white town—typically treated as an anomaly—America’s independent sundown towns, numbering in the thousands, have mostly escaped notice until now. Even the origin myths that whites used to explain such towns’ racial policies rarely got written down. Sundown suburbs, equally plentiful and concentrated around major cities, could not escape notice, but their whiteness was often dismissed as “natural,” resulting from market forces. As I tell audiences how sundown towns and suburbs were created, sometimes they gasp audibly, astonished to learn that there are so many sundown towns and suburbs, that these towns were created intentionally, often by violent means, and sometimes that they themselves live in one.
White residents do know the racial composition of their town, of course; it may even be a reason why they chose to move there. But most haven’t thought about how it came to be so white; it just seemed natural. Afterward, audience members often come up to tell me that their town or suburb is all-white or was until recently. Now they are curious: could it be that way on purpose? As one person from a sundown town near Champaign, Illinois, put it: “How naive I was growing up! I was in a sundown town and had no clue until now. Sad!” 2
A Conspiracy of Silence
Deliberate suppression has also played a role in keeping sundown towns hidden. This seems to be true in Myakka City, Florida, a small town twenty miles inland from Sarasota. By 1920, African Americans had built two churches and made up more than a third of the town’s population. “But just 20 years later,” according to Tampa Tribune reporter Roberta Nelson, writing in 2001, “blacks had vanished from Myakka City.” Myakka resident Melissa Sue Brewer wrote, “Myakka City ‘historians’ have erased all mention of African-Americans.” Suppressing the memory was hard because the expulsion apparently took place in the late 1930s, recent enough that oral history can still be done. Nelson interviewed one white woman, Marilyn Coker, who moved to Myakka City when she was eight; her late husband, a Myakka native,
remembered when the Negroes left, and how upset everyone was about it. The [white] people were upset that they were made to leave town. It was a vigilante kind of thing. Most of the people who lived here were not a part of it. But, all of a sudden, one day they were all gone.
Of course, not all white people were upset; some were the “vigilantes.” Other Myakka City old-timers remembered specific African American individuals, such as “Preacher Harper, who was ordered to leave on short notice and denied time to sell off his hogs and chickens.” Oral history on the disappeared black community may yet bring the full story to light. 15
“It just breaks my heart to see my town appear in your book,” said a librarian in West Frankfort, Illinois, in 2002, a feeling I heard repeated in many other sundown towns. This sentiment causes many residents who are ashamed to be living in all-white communities to hide the nature of their community from outsiders. Residents of
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