A Discourse On My Understanding and Experience of James Loewens Sundown Towns
The expression Sundown Town was coined to refer to a particular phenomenon of racial segregation which is responsible for all-white and nearly all-white towns across the U.S. Yet this information has largely flown under the radar of American youth, who are taught in history class that our nation has always been getting better, in everything from transportation to race relations. (24) This is an untruth, and Loewen argues that race relations have gotten progressively worse since the abolition of slavery, only starting to improve in the 1970s after the civil rights movement. He points out that in some ways, the North proceeded to treat African Americans worse than the South (36) after Reconstruction. Between the years 1890 to roughly the 1970, racism was enjoying a great resurgence. In 1856 the Dred Scott decision--which held that African Americans were regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect (20)became one of the pieces of bedrock upon which sundown towns were built. In 1896, in Plessy vs. Fergusen, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that segregation was legal, (33) which reinforced the already-entrenched view of African Americans as inferior beings. This black mark on U.S. history illustrates the extent to which race relations had disintegrated in this country, especially so between the years of 1890 to 1930.
Sundown towns boast of their all-white populations, although the means which they use to achieve that dubious distinction are the embodiment of hatred and prejudice--surely not something to be proud of. Some of the mechanisms for creating sundown towns are as follows through violence, where race-riots, lynching and ethnic cleanses (92) effectively served to either eliminate minority populations through murder, or by causing a mass fleeing of the persecuted population through threat, whereby the threat of violence, such as spectacle lynching (97), was used to send a message to the entire minority community that they were not wanted and by the influence of the Ku Klux Klan, whose presence was instrumental in driving the blacks away, (99). The Klan would draw thousands of supporters and galvanize those already inclined towards racism to act on these prejudices, giving whites a sense of power, and usually succeeding in unleashing anger and violence on the minority communities. Other methods of creating Sundown Towns are by ordinance, where (illegal) segregation laws were informally passed by the community to prohibit African Americans from being within the corporate limits of the town after sundown and to forbid selling or renting property to them (99) by government action, where municipalities drove out or kept out African Americans by formal policy, (103) and by freeze-out, where no specific act of violence or formal policy was required (106) to white-wash a town. Minorities were simply made unwelcome,(106) and jobs, real estate, services, common courtesy and county protection were suddenly withheld.
When I look to the census of my hometown, Los Altos Hills, California, for evidence of the Sundown phenomenon, I expect to find that our population makeup is similar that of a Sundown Town. When compared to the national averages for population breakdown, it is impossible to ignore the great disparity between the average ratio of blacks to whites, and the average in my town. Los Altos Hills total population is 7,902, of which 5,922 (75) are identified as white, and 47 (.6) are identified as black. There are 2,572 owner-occupied dwellings, which account for 93.9 of the population, and there are 168 renter-occupied dwellings, which account for 6.1 of the population. 52 families (2.2) are listed as below the poverty level, and 311 individuals (3.9) are listed as below the poverty level. The national averages are as follows Whites average 74.3 of the population, and African Americans average 12.3. While I have never heard of any outright racism in my town, although my schools were nearly all-white, and I rarely saw black people in my neighborhood, I never thought much about race while I was growing up. Yet perhaps that is because I never had to--when there is only one color, one tends not to think about other colors. It never occurred to me that minorities had probably been on the receiving end of segregation, violence, ordinances, and freeze-outs such that they moved elsewhere. I never believed that blacks were not welcome in my town, but perhaps the fact that there were hardly any blacks was all the proof that I needed. People--at least i myself--do not go where they are not wanted.
Judging from the census data, I would say that it is likely that the 47 blacks who live in my town are renters, not owners. I would not want to own property in an area which is filled with persons who are completely different from me. And perhaps therein lies some of my prejudice I assume that blacks are completely different from me. Perhaps the deadliest element of the sundown phenomenon is that it inculcates the feeling of difference, so that before there is prejudice or racism, there is the innate understanding of otherness. And otherness is usually perceived as initially scary, since it is a threat to what is known, to sameness, to the safety of the known. I was unaware of my internal prejudice until I started to examine this subject. Were I to hypothesize, I would say that my town became a sundown town due to freeze-outs and unwritten law (aka official government action condoned by our town officials). Our town has a large real estate and rental and leasing industry, and it occurs to me that perhaps this is indicative of the fact that individuals do not trust blacks Since we are in California, there is close proximity to the technology industry, which is notoriously white. Perhaps there was a hiring freeze on minorities in my town, although this is but a conjecture.
I assumed that the census data for Harlem, in NYC, would be the opposite of my town. I was correct there are approximately 2,626 whites (8.6) in Harlem, and 22,612 African Americans (74.4). It seems that this is one of the destinations African Americans retreated to after other areas carried out successful Sundown Town campaigns. The other town I was curious to learn more about was Albany, New York. I assumed that Albany would be racially integrated because it is the state capital, as well as where many of the government offices are located. I had heard that Albany is a very run-down city, and that there is a great deal of poverty. I was very surprised to learn that 83.2 (245,060 persons) of Albany is white, and 11.1 (32,624 persons) is black. And then I realized the source of my surprise. I was basing my expectations on the handful of times I had been in the largely-African American-employed Albany bus station, and on my few experience of walking around Albany late at night and feeling unsafe because it was an unknown place. My unconscious mind connected those two experiences because of an ingrained racism I have. What if the bus station had been all-white Would I still have made the connection that Albany is an all-white county Would I have felt safer at night, knowing that my own people were around I am ashamed to say that I am almost sure the answer is yes.
New census data is currently being collected, and I am curious as to whether the demographics of any of these areas will have changed. With the election of President Obama, I wonder whether former Sundown Towns are on their last legs. It has seemed to me, judging from my understanding that the Ku Klux Klan is the model for those who work for white supremacy, that white supremacy is closely linked to patriotism. This association is rendered incompatible now that we have a black president, so unless the Klan challenges the same electoral system which has until now put white men in the most powerful seat of America, they have no legs to stand on. Yet ignorance has always been a hallmark of racism, and racism knows no incompatibilities. The Klan may well think it completely reconcilable that they are patriotic, yet hate our president hatred is without logic, and operates from a primal fear for ones safety. Perhaps I am completely off base, but it seems that Sundown Towns do not operate on the premise that whites are fundamentally better and more worthy than blacksbut on the premise that blacks are capable of just the same generation of commerce, society and power as whites. Thus, the fear-based thinking goes, if blacks and whites co-exist, there is the chance that blacks will become more powerful and take over the town. This theory makes sense in small towns where there are few resources to go around, however it does not hold when translated to more successful and economically stable towns and cities. My answer to this is to assume that this fear is so deep that it is unconscious, and has been passed on over generations so that, regardless of ones wealth or social standing, there exists an illogical fear that everything can be taken away if racism is formally as well as informally, repealed.
Sundown Towns was illuminating as well as disturbing, as all worthwhile sociological texts should be. It was challenging to my sense of self to acknowledge that the logic I naturally employed when making an educated guess was derived from an illogical and racist attitude. I am fortunate to be aware at a young age of the operations of my unconscious, so that I can be one less unwitting member of a sundown town, and possibly an instrument of change.
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