Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension Of American Racism (4 page)
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Authors: James W. Loewen
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Between 1890 and the 1930s, however, all this changed. By 1930, although its white population had increased by 75%, the Upper Peninsula was home to only 331 African Americans, and 180 of them were inmates of the Marquette State Prison. Eleven Montana counties had no blacks at all. Across the country, city neighborhoods grew more and more segregated. Most astonishing, from California to Minnesota to Long Island to Florida, whites mounted little race riots against African Americans, expelling entire black communities or intimidating and keeping out would-be newcomers.
The Role of ViolenceWhenever a town had African American residents and no longer does, we should seek to learn how and why they left. Expulsions and prohibitions often lurk behind the census statistics. Vienna, a town in southern Illinois, provides a rather recent example. In 1950, Vienna had 1,085 people, including a black community of long standing, dating to the Civil War. In the 1950 census, African Americans numbered 34; additional black families lived just outside Vienna’s city limits. Then in the summer of 1954, two black men beat up a white grandmother and allegedly tried to rape her teenage granddaughter. The grandmother eventually died, and “every [white] man in town was deputized” to find the culprits, according to a Vienna resident in 2004. The two men were apprehended; in the aftermath, whites sacked the entire black community. “They burned the houses,” my informant said. “The blacks literally ran for their lives.” The
Vienna Times
put it more sedately: “The three remaining buildings on the South hill in the south city limits of Vienna were destroyed by fire about 4:30 o’clock Monday afternoon.” The report went on to tell that the state’s attorney and circuit judge later addressed a joint meeting of the Vienna city council and Johnson County commissioners, “telling them of the loss sustained by the colored people.” Both bodies “passed a resolution condemning the acts of vandalism” and promised to pay restitution to those who lost their homes and belongings. Neither body invited the black community to return, and no one was ever convicted of the crime of driving them out. In the 2000 census, Vienna’s population of 1,234 included just 1 African American.
19
Vienna Times
put it more sedately: “The three remaining buildings on the South hill in the south city limits of Vienna were destroyed by fire about 4:30 o’clock Monday afternoon.” The report went on to tell that the state’s attorney and circuit judge later addressed a joint meeting of the Vienna city council and Johnson County commissioners, “telling them of the loss sustained by the colored people.” Both bodies “passed a resolution condemning the acts of vandalism” and promised to pay restitution to those who lost their homes and belongings. Neither body invited the black community to return, and no one was ever convicted of the crime of driving them out. In the 2000 census, Vienna’s population of 1,234 included just 1 African American.
19
Violence also lay beneath the surface of towns that showed no sudden decline in black residents, never having had any. In 1951, for example, a Chicago bus driver, Harvey Clark, a veteran, tried to move into an apartment in suburban Cicero. First, the police stopped him by force, according to a report by social scientist William Gremley:
As he arrived at the building with the moving van, local police officials, including the Cicero police chief, stopped him from entering. When he protested, they informed him he could not move in without a “permit.” Clark argued in vain against this edict and finally telephoned his solicitor, who assured him that there was no provision in local, state, or federal laws for any such “permit.” The police officials then bluntly ordered him and the van away, threatening him with arrest if he failed to comply with their demand. Clark then left, after being manhandled and struck.
Two weeks later, with help from the NAACP, Clark got an injunction barring the Cicero police from interfering with his moving in and ordering them “to afford him full protection from any attempt to so restrain him.” As he moved in, a month after his first attempt, whites stood across the street and shouted racial epithets. That evening, a large crowd gathered, shouting and throwing stones to break the windows in the apartment Clark had just rented. Prudently, the Clark family did not occupy the apartment. The next night, the mob attacked the building, looted the Clarks’ apartment as well as some adjoining flats, threw the Clarks’ furniture and other belongings out the window, and set them afire in the courtyard below. Local police stood by and watched.
20
20
The following night, a mob of 3,500 gathered and rioted. According to a summary by Peter and Mort Bergman, “Gov. Adlai Stevenson called out the National Guard, and 450 guardsmen and 200 Cicero and Cook County police quelled the disorder; 72 persons were arrested, 60 were charged, 17 people were hospitalized.” Violence like this happened repeatedly in Cicero and adjacent Berwyn. In the 1960s, a white mob stoned members of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) marching through Cicero supporting open housing. Whites in Cicero beat seventeen-year-old African American Jerome Huey to death in the summer of 1966. In 1987, Norbert Blei, a Cicero resident, wrote
Neighborhood,
a warm memoir about the city. He told how an African American family
Neighborhood,
a warm memoir about the city. He told how an African American family
“almost” moved into Cicero on West 12th Place last spring. But they didn’t make it. The black family said that they didn’t know the home they bought was in Cicero. They thought it was in Chicago. But Cicero reminded them with gas-filled bottles and shots in the dark. “The area is well-secured,” said Cicero’s council president, John Karner, after the incendiary incident.
So far as I know, no one was ever convicted in Cicero or Vienna.
21
21
This is not ancient history. Many victims of Vienna’s ethnic cleansing are still alive; some even return to Vienna from time to time to obtain birth certificates or transact other business.
22
The perpetrators and the victims of the 1987 Cicero incident still live. Moreover, African Americans who tried to move into other sundown suburbs and towns have had trouble as recently as 2004, as later chapters will tell.
22
The perpetrators and the victims of the 1987 Cicero incident still live. Moreover, African Americans who tried to move into other sundown suburbs and towns have had trouble as recently as 2004, as later chapters will tell.
Across America, at least 50 towns, and probably many more than that, drove out their African American populations violently. At least 16 did so in Illinois alone. In the West, another 50 or more towns drove out their Chinese American populations.
23
Many other sundown towns and suburbs used violence to keep out blacks or, sometimes, other minorities.
Sundown Nation23
Many other sundown towns and suburbs used violence to keep out blacks or, sometimes, other minorities.
Sundown towns are no minor matter. To this day, African Americans who know about sundown towns concoct various rules to predict and avoid them. In Florida, for instance, any town or city with “Palm” in its name was thought to be especially likely to keep out African Americans. In Indiana, it was any jurisdiction with a color in its name, such as Brownsburg, Brownstown, Brown County, Greenfield, Greenwood, or Vermillion County—and indeed, all were sundown locales. Across the United States, African Americans are still understandably wary of towns with “white” in their name, such as Whitesboro, Texas; White City, Kansas; White Hall, Arkansas; Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin; and Whiteland, Whitestown, and White County, Indiana—and again, all the foregoing communities probably kept out African Americans. So have a number of towns named for idealistic concepts—Equality, Illinois; New Harmony, Indiana; Liberty, Tennessee, and the like. Actually, most places with “white” in their name were named after someone (or some fish) named “White”; these sundry rules “work” only because
most
communities were sundown towns.
most
communities were sundown towns.
Millions of Americans—including many of our country’s leaders—live in or grew up in sundown towns and suburbs. An interesting way to see the ubiquity of these towns is to examine the backgrounds of all northern candidates for president nominated by the two major parties since the twentieth century began and sundown towns became common.
24
Of the 27 candidates for whom I could readily distinguish the racial policies of their hometowns, one-third were identified with sundown towns. Starting at the beginning of the century, these include Republican William McKinley, who grew up in Niles, Ohio, where “a sign near the Erie Depot,” according to historian William Jenkins, “warned ‘niggers’ that they had better not ‘let the sun set on their heads.’ ” McKinley defeated Democrat William Jennings Bryan, who grew up in Salem, Illinois, which for decades “had signs on each main road going into town, telling the blacks, that they were not allowed in town after sundown,” according to Ed Hayes, who graduated from Salem High School in 1969. Teddy Roosevelt was most identified with Cove Neck, a tiny upper-class peninsula on Long Island that incorporated partly to keep out undesirables, including African Americans, requiring large building lots. As late as 1990, its small black population consisted overwhelmingly of live-in maids. In 1920, Warren G. Harding ran his famous “front porch campaign” from his family home in Marion, Ohio; a few months before, Marion was the scene of an ethnic cleansing as whites drove out virtually every African American. According to Harding scholar Phillip Payne, “As a consequence, Marion is an overwhelming[ly] white town to this date [2002].” Herbert Hoover grew up in a part of Iowa that may have gotten rid of its blacks around that time, but I cannot confirm his hometown as a sundown town.
25
Wendell Willkie’s father was mayor of Elwood, Indiana, a sundown town that is still all-white today; Willkie went to Elwood in 1940 to deliver his speech accepting the Republican nomination. Owosso, Michigan, briefly became mildly notorious as a sundown town in 1944 and 1948 because Thomas Dewey, Republican candidate for president, grew up there. But Democrats couldn’t make too much of that fact, especially in 1948, because their own candidate, Harry Truman, also grew up in a sundown town, Lamar, Missouri. Reporter Morris Milgram pointed out that Lamar “was a Jim Crow town of 3,000, without a single Negro family. When I had spoken about this with leading citizens of Lamar . . . they told me, all using the word ‘n——r,’ that colored people weren’t wanted in Lamar.” Another Democrat, Lyndon Johnson, grew up in Johnson City, Texas, probably a sundown town.
26
The trend continues to the present: George W. Bush lived for years in Highland Park, a sundown suburb of Dallas; so did his vice president, Dick Cheney, from 1995 until he moved to Washington to take office.
27
The first African American to buy a home in Highland Park did so only in June 2003. In all, nine of America’s presidential candidates since 1900 grew up in probable sundown towns and suburbs, eighteen came from towns where blacks could live, and five from towns
28
whose policies I haven’t been able to identify.
29
24
Of the 27 candidates for whom I could readily distinguish the racial policies of their hometowns, one-third were identified with sundown towns. Starting at the beginning of the century, these include Republican William McKinley, who grew up in Niles, Ohio, where “a sign near the Erie Depot,” according to historian William Jenkins, “warned ‘niggers’ that they had better not ‘let the sun set on their heads.’ ” McKinley defeated Democrat William Jennings Bryan, who grew up in Salem, Illinois, which for decades “had signs on each main road going into town, telling the blacks, that they were not allowed in town after sundown,” according to Ed Hayes, who graduated from Salem High School in 1969. Teddy Roosevelt was most identified with Cove Neck, a tiny upper-class peninsula on Long Island that incorporated partly to keep out undesirables, including African Americans, requiring large building lots. As late as 1990, its small black population consisted overwhelmingly of live-in maids. In 1920, Warren G. Harding ran his famous “front porch campaign” from his family home in Marion, Ohio; a few months before, Marion was the scene of an ethnic cleansing as whites drove out virtually every African American. According to Harding scholar Phillip Payne, “As a consequence, Marion is an overwhelming[ly] white town to this date [2002].” Herbert Hoover grew up in a part of Iowa that may have gotten rid of its blacks around that time, but I cannot confirm his hometown as a sundown town.
25
Wendell Willkie’s father was mayor of Elwood, Indiana, a sundown town that is still all-white today; Willkie went to Elwood in 1940 to deliver his speech accepting the Republican nomination. Owosso, Michigan, briefly became mildly notorious as a sundown town in 1944 and 1948 because Thomas Dewey, Republican candidate for president, grew up there. But Democrats couldn’t make too much of that fact, especially in 1948, because their own candidate, Harry Truman, also grew up in a sundown town, Lamar, Missouri. Reporter Morris Milgram pointed out that Lamar “was a Jim Crow town of 3,000, without a single Negro family. When I had spoken about this with leading citizens of Lamar . . . they told me, all using the word ‘n——r,’ that colored people weren’t wanted in Lamar.” Another Democrat, Lyndon Johnson, grew up in Johnson City, Texas, probably a sundown town.
26
The trend continues to the present: George W. Bush lived for years in Highland Park, a sundown suburb of Dallas; so did his vice president, Dick Cheney, from 1995 until he moved to Washington to take office.
27
The first African American to buy a home in Highland Park did so only in June 2003. In all, nine of America’s presidential candidates since 1900 grew up in probable sundown towns and suburbs, eighteen came from towns where blacks could live, and five from towns
28
whose policies I haven’t been able to identify.
29
Besides presidents, such famous Americans as public speaker Dale Carnegie (Maryville, Missouri), folksinger Woody Guthrie (Okemah, Oklahoma), Senator Joe McCarthy (Appleton, Wisconsin), etiquette czar Emily Post (Tuxedo Park, New York), and architect Frank Lloyd Wright (Oak Park, Illinois) grew up in towns that kept out African Americans. So did novelists Ernest Hemingway (Oak Park), Edna Ferber (Appleton), and James Jones (Robinson, Illinois), although as far as I can tell, they never mentioned the matter in their writing. I do not know if apple pie was invented in a sundown town, but Spam (Austin, Minnesota), Kentucky Fried Chicken (Corbin, Kentucky), and Heath Bars (Robinson) were. Other signature American edibles such as Krispy Kreme doughnuts (Effingham, Illinois
30
) and Tootsie Rolls (West Lawn, Chicago) also come from sundown communities. Tarzan may have lived in “darkest Africa,” but he was born in one sundown town (Oak Park, home of Edgar Rice Burroughs), and the proceeds from his wildly successful novels and movies underwrote Burroughs’s creation of another (Tarzana, California).
31
The highest-grossing movie of all time (in constant dollars),
Gone with the Wind,
was made in a sundown town, Culver City, California, from which vantage point producer David Selznick was baffled by petitions from African Americans concerned about the racism in its screenplay.
32
Gentleman’s Agreement,
on the other hand, the only feature film to treat sundown towns seriously, was made in Los Angeles.
33
30
) and Tootsie Rolls (West Lawn, Chicago) also come from sundown communities. Tarzan may have lived in “darkest Africa,” but he was born in one sundown town (Oak Park, home of Edgar Rice Burroughs), and the proceeds from his wildly successful novels and movies underwrote Burroughs’s creation of another (Tarzana, California).
31
The highest-grossing movie of all time (in constant dollars),
Gone with the Wind,
was made in a sundown town, Culver City, California, from which vantage point producer David Selznick was baffled by petitions from African Americans concerned about the racism in its screenplay.
32
Gentleman’s Agreement,
on the other hand, the only feature film to treat sundown towns seriously, was made in Los Angeles.
33
Chapter 3, “The Great Retreat,” will show that large cities like Los Angeles could not exclude blacks completely—the task was simply too daunting—although residents of New York City, Fort Wayne, Tulsa, and several other cities tried. Nevertheless, whole sections of cities did keep out African Americans and sometimes other groups. Although this book doesn’t usually treat “mere” neighborhoods, some sundown neighborhoods are huge. West Lawn in Chicago, for instance, has its own Chamber of Commerce, whose executive director brags that it is “a small town in a big city.” It is also the birthplace of the Dove ice cream bar and the Tucker automobile. According to reporter Steve Bogira, in 1980 West Lawn had 113,000 whites and just 111 African Americans. Every large city in the United States has its all-white neighborhoods, all-white by design; certainly the West End of Decatur, where I grew up, was that way. All too many small towns, meanwhile, if they are interracial at all, still consist of sundown neighborhoods on one side, overwhelmingly black neighborhoods on the other, and the business district or a railroad in between. So sundown neighborhoods form another major part of the problem.
34
Why Dwell On It Now?34
Since 1969, I have been studying how Americans remember their past, especially their racial past. Sometimes audiences or readers ask, “Why do you insist on dredging up the abominations in our past?” About sundown towns in particular, some people have suggested that we might all be happier and better off
not
knowing about them. “Why focus on that?” asked an old African American man in Colp, in southern Illinois, in 2001, when he learned I was studying the sundown towns that surrounded Colp in every direction. “That’s done with.”
35
not
knowing about them. “Why focus on that?” asked an old African American man in Colp, in southern Illinois, in 2001, when he learned I was studying the sundown towns that surrounded Colp in every direction. “That’s done with.”
35
I thought about his suggestion seriously. After all, during the 1980s and 1990s, many communities relaxed their prohibitions and accepted at least one or two black families, sometimes many more. But I concluded there were several reasons why the sad story of sundown towns should not be kept out of view.
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