Across the nation, there have been thousands of communities that kept out African Americans by force, law, or custom. These communities are sometimes called “sundown towns” because some of them posted signs at their city limits that said something like, “Nigger, Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On You In ___.” Some towns are still all white on purpose. Writer James W. Loewen investigated the phenomenon in his book, “Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism.”
There Are Thousands of Them
From about 1890 to approximately 1968, white Americans established sundown towns in thousands of communities across the nation.
