Book Description:
"No blacks allowed, especially after dark. This was the unwritten rule in a "sundown" town. In his trademark revelatory style, bestselling author James W. Loewen explores one of America's best-kept secrets as he unearths the making of sundown towns and discloses the fact that many white neighborhoods and suburbs are the result of years of racism and segregation. Anna, Illinois; Darien, Connecticut; and Cedar Key, Florida, are just a few examples of the thousands of all-white towns established between 1890 and 1968, many of which still exist today. White residents of these towns used any means possible -- including the law, harassment, race riots, and even murder -- to keep African Americans and other minority groups out.
Powerful and unprecedented, Sundown Towns tells the story of how these towns came into existence, what maintains them, and what to do about them. It also deepens our understanding of the role racism has played and continues to play in our society."
Amazon.com:
Random comments:
"Growing up a white Westerner in mostly white towns, I always had the question about race relations: "Why the hell would such a high percentage of black people choose to live in nasty big cities? Why don't they move here? I won't hurt 'em. Their kids would get better educations and they'd do fine." It sounds so easy. Did any of you ever wonder that?
As Prof. Loewen documents with the greatest of care, after the Civil War that's what happened. And then, town by town, said black people were driven out and told never to return. The census figures combined with eyewitness accounts will admit of no other conclusion. Black people ended up concentrated in the only areas that were relatively safe to be black in."
"This is a great book that details the systematic forced exodus of African Americans from white society. This book helped explain in a lot of way why blacks act the way they do and why they are in the economic position they are in at this moment in history."
"Not only is this a book about the many subtle and not-so-subtle ways that minority groups (African-Americans, and to a lesser degree Asian- and Hispanic-Americans) have been kept segregated, it is a book about possible remedies that are practical in nature. There are many surprising facts, both to those who thought certain states were immune to the virus of racism that created segregated communities ("sundown rules in sundown towns") but also to those who felt some areas of the country had to be more frequently guilty of the practice of warning minorities to get out of town by sundown."
