I n the fall of 2001, I visited my hometown of Decatur, Illinois, to headline the second Decatur Writers Conference. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that sundown cities and counties existed all across America. Sundown towns, sometimes known as sunset towns, are all-white municipalities or neighborhoods in the United States that practice racism in a form of segregation by enforcing restrictions excluding people of other races via some combination of racial, discriminatory local laws, intimidation, and violence.. Looking_For_America_Sundown_Towns_15837 The moon shines through clouds along a highway in New Columbia, Ill., near Vienna, Ill., on Saturday, Aug. 1, 2020. In Vienna, Illinois, almost no one talks openly about the violence that drove out Black residents nearly 70 years ago, or about how it became one of hundreds – perhaps thousands – of ‘sundown towns.’ These towns were places where Black people were allowed in during the day to work or shop but had to be gone by nightfall. ProPublica Illinois held a webinar Tuesday on the topic of “From Sundown Towns to Black Lives Matter: Race and Racism in Small-Town America.” Its primary focus was on Anna, a former “sundown town” south of Carbondale that was recently the … The moon shines through clouds along a highway in New Columbia, Ill., near Vienna, Ill., on Saturday, Aug. 1, 2020. When you’re looking at the places in Illinois with the highest number of KKK Klaverns per capita back in the day, this is an accurate list. Sundown towns were all over America. Takiyah Coleman 19, who organized a Black Lives Matter protest poses for a portrait in Anna City Park, Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2020, in Anna, Ill. “Sundown towns” like Anna were places where Black people were allowed in during the day to work or shop but had to be gone by nightfall. Illinois had almost 150 sundown towns in the state alone. Loewen said he found similar proportions in other northern and western states. Sundown Towns is an anthology of racism that led to towns creating covenants (sometimes unwritten) that excluded minorities from living in these towns, working in these towns, and even in some cases passing through these towns .The book is more generally about the racism directed at African Americans, Chinese and Jewish Americans. Sundown towns, also known as sunset towns, gray towns, or sundowner towns, are all-white municipalities or neighborhoods in the United States that practice a form of racial segregation by excluding non-whites via some combination of discriminatory local laws, intimidation, and violence. When Loewen began his research in 1999, he thought he’d find just a handful of sundown towns and “recovering” sundown towns, as he calls them, in Illinois. about sundown towns across Illinois. Heavy … A Sundown Town Sees Its First Black Lives Matter Protest A small town with a name caught up in racist lore. But starting in 1915, when Black Southerners began to migrate to the North in droves, sundown towns began to pop up there as well. African American History: Concepts: African American History: African American History: Places. We came here on the second stop of The Associated Press’ road trip across America, a reporting journey that three of us are taking to look at how the U.S. has been shaken and shaped by months of protests, the COVID-19 pandemic, an economic crisis and the looming November elections. The social costs of sundown towns on whites, blacks, and the social system are then detailed and recommendations for fixing this blight on the body politic are proffered. … Another story praises Glendale for being the first of many California sundown towns to step up and take steps to transcend its past. In considering the sociology of sundown towns he investigates the causes that underlie the existence of sundown towns and discusses why the phenomena has remained largely hidden. Confirmed examples near Champaign County include Arcola, DeLand, Monticello and Paxton. This part of southern Illinois had at least a half-dozen sundown towns. Entire sundown counties and sundown suburbs were also created by the same process. At the end of my address, which was on ideas I explored in my best-selling book Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong, I mentioned my ongoing research on American towns that are intentionally all white—sometimes known as “sundown towns.” This part of southern Illinois had at least a half-dozen sundown towns. For more Illinois reading , check out: These Are The 10 Best Places To Live In Illinois At their height, there were thousands and thousands of sundown towns across the U.S. Loewen's original research — based on U.S. census numbers, oral histories and written history — showed that, of the 671 towns in Illinois with more than 1,000 people, 71 percent were all-white, and almost all were all-white on purpose. 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