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Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism
by James W. Loewen
New York: The New Press, 2005. 562 pp. $29.95.
What is in a name? A great deal evidently. Anna, Illinois has about 7,000 people and adjoins Jonesboro. These twin towns lie north of Cairo in southern Illinois. In 1909, both Anna and Jonesboro expelled Blacks and became known as sundown towns. It has been confirmed that Anna really means "Ain't No N_____Allowed." After 1909 when Anna expelled its Blacks and as late as 1970, signs on the highway to Anna proclaimed, "N_____, Don't Let the Sun Go Down on You in Anna-Jonesboro."
James Loewen has written a thorough history of sundown towns. This is a history that few people know. Almost no literature exists on sundown towns. Most Americans have no idea that sundown towns exist. The few Americans who know about them commonly assume that these towns exist in the deep South. The ironic thing is that the traditional South has almost no sundown towns. For example, Mississippi has no more than six. Most sundown towns are in western and eastern areas of the United States. Illinois has over 400 sundown towns. Indiana has a total of 231 ail-White towns. In northern United States, Garrett County, Maryland is all-White; Greenbelt, Maryland was founded during the Depression for Whites only. Darien, Connecticut is also all-White-police would question any Black person who was spotted there.
The main targets of most sundown towns were Negroes. However, Jewish and Chinese groups have also been harassed in this fashion. San Francisco citizens drove the Chinese out of the main part of the city; afterwards they established "Chinatown." In addition to the Chinese, at one time or another, Japanese, Jewish, and Native and Mexican Americans were subjected to exclusion from some towns. Other towns excluded Greeks, Sicilians, Mormons, homosexuals, labor union members and even Seventh Day Adventists. But by far, Blacks have been excluded more universally than any other group.
Anna and Jonesboro are examples of sundown towns. There were thousands of such towns, hamlets, and unincorporated settlements in the United States. To this day, Blacks have ways to predict that a certain place will in all likelihood be sundown. For example, in Florida any town or city...