Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension Of American Racism (76 page)
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Authors: James W. Loewen
BOOK: Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension Of American Racism
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On the other hand, sometimes lone black students have made little difference. In 1974 James Lockhart spent his senior year in Highland Park High School, a Dallas sundown suburb, the first African American student. Whites called him “nigger,” ripped his pants, and stole his books. Afterward, Lockhart recalled, “At first a lot of people rejected me. But later, as they got to know me better, they accepted me. They said I’d scared them because they’d never been around blacks.” His parents viewed the harassment as the work of “no more than five students.” Nevertheless, Highland Park, former home to both President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard Cheney, did not really desegregate until May 2003. In that month, the first African American family bought a house in the suburb. James Ragland, columnist for the
Dallas Morning News,
commented:
Dallas Morning News,
commented:
I find it hard to believe that no black person ever has owned a home in Highland Park, an exclusive suburb often referred to as “the bubble.”No black CEO. No black athlete. No black entertainer. No black entrepreneur. No black lawyer or doctor.No one?“As far as we know, that’s true,” said Tom Boone, editor of
Park Cities People.
Thus so far as Highland Park knows, it was a sundown suburb until 2003.
63
Unless the new black family gets driven out by hateful incidents, which I doubt will happen, and if additional African American households join them, then Highland Park has finally cracked.
64
Athletics Can Prompt Change63
Unless the new black family gets driven out by hateful incidents, which I doubt will happen, and if additional African American households join them, then Highland Park has finally cracked.
64
Athletics can provide a bridge. In town after sundown town, principals and teachers say that their lone black student fits in if s/he could play ball. In Duncan, Arizona, in 1950, athletics even provided a bridge across racially separate schools. Earl Randolph Jr. was kept out of Duncan High School and confined to a “school” devised just for himself and his siblings, but he was allowed to play on Duncan’s athletic teams. Partly owing to his prowess, according to Duncan resident Betty Toomes, “they were unbeatable.” The next year, the family moved to nearby Clifton, Duncan’s traditional rival, and “Duncan was very sorry to see them go.” Earl Randolph Jr. went on to become a multisport varsity athlete at Arizona State University.
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Not only does the individual black student find acceptance through athletics, but the high school and even the town modifies its definition of the ingroup. When all-white athletic teams become interracial, even if they remain mostly white, gradually the rhetoric changes: no longer do team members or fans indulge in the racial slurs of their sundown past. No longer do they throw rocks at the team buses of visiting interracial squads. Overtly racist comments and behaviors cannot be performed by interracial teams, because the African Americans on the team would not allow it. Indeed, white students on an interracial team would never yell “nigger” at an opposing player in the first place. It would never occur to them to “otherize” their opponents on
racial
grounds, since doing so would otherize some of their own players. Of course, interracial teams and fans can still otherize opponents in other ways: parody their fight songs, disrupt their cheers, call opposing linemen “sissies,” and so forth. But they don’t use racial slurs or think in racial terms. Such rhetoric would create an ingroup—whites—that would be divisive and inappropriate on an interracial team in an interracial town.
racial
grounds, since doing so would otherize some of their own players. Of course, interracial teams and fans can still otherize opponents in other ways: parody their fight songs, disrupt their cheers, call opposing linemen “sissies,” and so forth. But they don’t use racial slurs or think in racial terms. Such rhetoric would create an ingroup—whites—that would be divisive and inappropriate on an interracial team in an interracial town.
Within interracial schools, athletics are a unifier, say principals across the land. Cairo, Illinois, has had a difficult racial history, verging on open warfare in the early 1970s.
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Even in that milieu, Cairo’s athletic teams brought some students together. According to Bruce Brinkmeyer, the white quarterback at the time, “We were just trying to play ball, and when you see a black teammate out there sweating and working just like you, you don’t see him as different.” By 1987, thanks to racial bias from a neighboring sundown town, athletics was bringing some racial harmony to the entire city. After unfair officiating at a basketball game in Anna that year, whites and blacks in Cairo were outraged together.
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As Cairo’s white school superintendent, Ed Armstrong, put it:
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Even in that milieu, Cairo’s athletic teams brought some students together. According to Bruce Brinkmeyer, the white quarterback at the time, “We were just trying to play ball, and when you see a black teammate out there sweating and working just like you, you don’t see him as different.” By 1987, thanks to racial bias from a neighboring sundown town, athletics was bringing some racial harmony to the entire city. After unfair officiating at a basketball game in Anna that year, whites and blacks in Cairo were outraged together.
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As Cairo’s white school superintendent, Ed Armstrong, put it:
This time it was obvious even to some people who might not be as objective in their racial attitudes as they should be, that the team was mistreated. It was obvious why. There’s an awful lot of racial hatred involved. The whites in Cairo see that, and they know it’s not fair. Their team, a black team, was suffering unfairly.
68
Hate rhetoric directed toward Mexican American basketball players performed the same unifying service in Beardstown in 2003. About 20 fans of nearby Brown County High School, a sundown county, showed up wearing sombreros and yelling “We want tacos” at the Beardstown team. According to Beardstown senior Tomas Alvarez, “People were mad. They really care about the image of Beardstown. That wasn’t just against an ethnic group. It was against the whole town.”
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Letting in a mere handful of African Americans may not always do the trick, as shown by Hemet, southeast of Los Angeles. As reporter Bill Jennings put it in 1992, “Hemet was pretty well a sundown town, meaning blacks could work over here during the day but they had better head for Perris or wherever at dusk.” In 1989, Hemet had about 23 African Americans among its 25,000 residents, less than 0.1%. Three were on the Hemet High School football team, 6% of its 50-man roster. Still, Hemet’s white players continued their long tradition of taunting African Americans on opposing teams as “niggers.” Having three black teammates did not suffice to humanize Hemet’s rhetoric, and the three apparently said little about the matter. By 2000, 1,500 African Americans lived in Hemet, 2.6% of the total population. No more reports of race-baiting at its athletic contests made the press.
70
Colleges Can Prompt Change70
African American college students have usually made less impact on sundown towns. They stay on campus and are seen as transients, so they don’t challenge or ameliorate the sundown rule. All too often, neither do their institutions, which have more often been a captive of their town rather than a point of leverage to change it. The University of Oklahoma was a large state university in the relatively small sundown town of Norman, but the university itself kept out African American students until after a court order in 1949. According to George Callcott, university historian, the University of Maryland made no attempt to change the exclusionary policy of University Park, Maryland, which prohibited Jews as well as African Americans: “The University administration was very conservative and wouldn’t have
wanted
to touch it.” Likewise, to the best of my knowledge, throughout the years down to 1968, Lawrence University made no attempt to change Appleton, Wisconsin; North Central College made no impact in Naperville, Illinois; Eastern New Mexico University made none in Portales, New Mexico; and several colleges never tried to desegregate their sundown suburbs of Los Angeles.
71
wanted
to touch it.” Likewise, to the best of my knowledge, throughout the years down to 1968, Lawrence University made no attempt to change Appleton, Wisconsin; North Central College made no impact in Naperville, Illinois; Eastern New Mexico University made none in Portales, New Mexico; and several colleges never tried to desegregate their sundown suburbs of Los Angeles.
71
In a few towns colleges did promote tolerance. Regarding Jews, the University of California made a difference in La Jolla, in southern California. La Jolla had a “gentleman’s agreement” to keep out Jews and African Americans from the 1920s through about 1959. Most and probably all residential areas were covered by covenants limiting owners and tenants to “the Caucasian race,” interpreted to exclude Jews. After
Shelley v. Kraemer
made covenants unenforceable, La Jolla relied on realtors to discourage Jewish would-be buyers. “Every Jewish person I know was given the runaround,” explained the wife of a Jewish scientist hired by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, part of the University of California system, regarding their failed attempt to buy a house in La Jolla in 1947. In the 1950s, the California university system wanted to locate a major new campus in La Jolla. The man in charge of the process, Roger Revelle, felt, “You can’t have a university without having Jewish professors.” Clark Kerr, president of the University of California system, agreed. In 1958, Revelle made “a more or less famous speech,” as he put it later, to the Real Estate Brokers Association in which he said, “You’ve got to make up your mind. You’re either going to have a university or you’re going to have an anti-Semitic covenant. You can’t have both.” Even faced with this ultimatum, most realtors still wouldn’t comply, but their unanimity was broken: two agents—Jim Becker and Joseph Klatt—refused to exclude Jews in the 1960s, and the University of California at San Diego came into being. Becker died in 1981; at least as late as 1996, Jews in La Jolla still “remember[ed] his stand against the La Jolla real estate brokers,” according to historian Mary Ellen Stratthaus. In the late 1960s, when many colleges began to recruit African American students, they—along with progressive white students and professors—pushed their institutions to make a difference in their communities. For example, the next chapter tells how faculty members at Valparaiso University led a private campaign in 1969 that desegregated their sundown town in northwestern Indiana.
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The SouthShelley v. Kraemer
made covenants unenforceable, La Jolla relied on realtors to discourage Jewish would-be buyers. “Every Jewish person I know was given the runaround,” explained the wife of a Jewish scientist hired by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, part of the University of California system, regarding their failed attempt to buy a house in La Jolla in 1947. In the 1950s, the California university system wanted to locate a major new campus in La Jolla. The man in charge of the process, Roger Revelle, felt, “You can’t have a university without having Jewish professors.” Clark Kerr, president of the University of California system, agreed. In 1958, Revelle made “a more or less famous speech,” as he put it later, to the Real Estate Brokers Association in which he said, “You’ve got to make up your mind. You’re either going to have a university or you’re going to have an anti-Semitic covenant. You can’t have both.” Even faced with this ultimatum, most realtors still wouldn’t comply, but their unanimity was broken: two agents—Jim Becker and Joseph Klatt—refused to exclude Jews in the 1960s, and the University of California at San Diego came into being. Becker died in 1981; at least as late as 1996, Jews in La Jolla still “remember[ed] his stand against the La Jolla real estate brokers,” according to historian Mary Ellen Stratthaus. In the late 1960s, when many colleges began to recruit African American students, they—along with progressive white students and professors—pushed their institutions to make a difference in their communities. For example, the next chapter tells how faculty members at Valparaiso University led a private campaign in 1969 that desegregated their sundown town in northwestern Indiana.
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Responding to all of these factors, some sundown towns across the United States have given up their exclusionary policies. We shall begin our quick tour in the South, which has progressed furthest in doing away with sundown towns, owing to the influence of the Civil Rights Movement. The traditional South had the fewest sundown towns to begin with; there, sundown towns were mostly limited to newer suburbs that developed mostly after World War II. These suburbs stayed all-white only for two to three decades and began to desegregate as early as the 1970s. Most suburbs of Southern cities desegregated before the 1990s.
Chamblee, Georgia, is an example. By 1970 it had become a sundown suburb; its 9,127 residents included just 1 black woman, probably a maid. Then, during the 1980s, Chamblee not only desegregated, it became cosmopolitan, even international. By 1990, among 7,668 residents were 1,482 African Americans and 1,108 others, mostly Asians and Asian Americans. By the 2000 census, two-thirds of Chamblee’s 9,838 residents were born outside the United States.
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International immigrants were not required to achieve the integration of southern suburbs. Pearl, a suburb of Jackson, Mississippi, exemplifies the more usual process. Like Chamblee and many other formerly rural southern towns, as Pearl suburbanized, it got rid of its African American residents. By 1970, Pearl had 9,623 residents, including just 10 African Americans, disproportionately female, probably live-in servants. But Pearl’s life span as a sundown suburb was brief, because in January 1970, public schools throughout Mississippi were fully desegregated by federal court order. Now most white neighborhoods and suburbs in the state, including Pearl, opened rather suddenly to African American residents.
It wasn’t that thousands of white Mississippians suddenly realized they should let African Americans live next door to them, although some did come to that conclusion. Rather, the policy of racism and resistance that the state and city had followed from 1890 to 1970 had failed, at least so far as the schools were concerned. The whites who ran the public schools had done everything they knew to do to keep them segregated; the result was they were now fully desegregated. This unanticipated outcome removed the wind from the sails of those whites who had previously been determined to avoid residential desegregation. Gordon Morgan’s survey of white attitudes in Mountain Home, a sundown town in the Arkansas Ozarks, caught this sense of inevitability. Most of his respondents expected that African Americans
“will
move in, in about five years.”
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To be sure, whites could still flee a neighborhood when a black family entered, just as they could enroll their own children in a private school. But they had lost faith in their ability to keep blacks out of their neighborhood, having failed to keep them out of their white public schools. By 1980, Pearl had 2,341 African Americans among its now nearly 21,000 residents. The same thing happened in other sundown suburbs across Mississippi
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and the South.
76
“will
move in, in about five years.”
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To be sure, whites could still flee a neighborhood when a black family entered, just as they could enroll their own children in a private school. But they had lost faith in their ability to keep blacks out of their neighborhood, having failed to keep them out of their white public schools. By 1980, Pearl had 2,341 African Americans among its now nearly 21,000 residents. The same thing happened in other sundown suburbs across Mississippi
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and the South.
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Some progress also took place a little later in the nontraditional South, where sundown towns and counties abounded. At least half of the independent sundown towns in the nontraditional South stopped excluding African Americans in the 1990s or since the 2000 census. Consider Arkansas. During the Nadir, whites expelled African Americans from many places in the Ozarks, as well as from other towns and counties in the northwestern half of Arkansas, most recently from Sheridan in 1954. By 1960, six Arkansas counties had no African Americans at all (Baxter, Fulton, Polk, Searcy, Sharp, and Stone), seven more had one to three, and another county had just six. I suspect all fourteen were sundown counties and have confirmed eight.
By 1990, census figures showed little change, but in the 1990s, many of these counties seem to have relaxed their restrictions. The 2000 census showed that every Arkansas county had at least ten African Americans except Searcy, with three, and Stone, with nine. Some counties showed considerable change. Benton County, which grew from 97,499 people in 1990 to 153,406 in 2000—fueled by growth at Wal-Mart’s corporate headquarters—included 629 African Americans in that new larger population. African Americans were only 0.4% of the total in 2000, and the black increase amounted to fewer than one person in every 100 newcomers. Nevertheless, African Americans have reasserted their right to live in Benton County. The same holds for Sharp County, farther east in the Ozarks: 84 African Americans lived there in 2000, in 24 households.
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