This isn't a very pleasant subject matter... if anyone has read the book/study about this or would care to comment it would be greatly appreciated. If anyone finds this post offensive, my humblest apologies...

I'm currently reading the author's book Lies My Teacher Told Me : Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James W. Loewen and was curious about his other book, below.

Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism
by James W. Loewen
Published October 1, 2005
ISBN: 156584887X


Review from Publishers Weekly:

According to bestselling sociologist Loewen (Lies My Teacher Told Me), "something significant has been left out of the broad history of race in America as it is usually taught," namely the establishment between 1890 and 1968 of thousands of "sundown towns" that systematically excluded African-Americans from living within their borders.

Located mostly outside the traditional South, these towns employed legal formalities, race riots, policemen, bricks, fires and guns to produce homogeneously Caucasian communities—and some of them continue such unsavory practices to this day. Loewen's eye-opening history traces the sundown town's development and delineates the extent to which state governments and the federal government, "openly favor[ed] white supremacy" from the 1930s through the 1960s, "helped to create and maintain all-white communities" through their lending and insuring policies. "While African Americans never lost the right to vote in the North... they did lose the right to live in town after town, county after county," Loewen points out. The expulsion forced African-Americans into urban ghettoes and continues to have ramifications on the lives of whites, blacks and the social system at large. Admirably thorough and extensively footnoted, Loewen's investigation may put off some general readers with its density and statistical detail, but the stories he recounts form a compelling corrective to the "textbook archetype of interrupted progress." As the first comprehensive history of sundown towns ever written, this book is sure to become a landmark in several fields and a sure bet among Loewen's many fans. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com:

In Oct. 2001, James W. Loewen stopped at a convenience store in the small Illinois town of Anna -- a name that, as a store clerk confirmed, stands for "Ain't No Niggers Allowed."

On Nov. 8, 1909, nearly a century before Loewen stepped into the store, a mob of angry white citizens drove out Anna's 40 or so black families following the lynching in a nearby town of a black man accused of raping a white woman. Anna became all-white literally overnight, Loewen reports, and embraced racial exclusiveness for the long haul. According to the 2000 census, just one family with a black member lives among Anna's 7,000 residents.

Anna is far from unique, as Loewen, a sociologist, argues in his powerful and important new book, Sundown Towns. On the contrary, Loewen reports that -- beginning in roughly 1890 with the end of Reconstruction and continuing until the fair-housing legislation of the late 1960s -- whites in America created thousands of whites-only towns, commonly known as "sundown towns" owing to the signs often posted at their city limits that warned, as one did in Hawthorne, Calif., in the 1930s: "Nigger, Don't Let The Sun Set On YOU In Hawthorne." In fact, Loewen claims that, during that 70-year period, outside the traditional South, "probably a majority of all incorporated places [in the United States] kept out African Americans."

Such a bold claim would seem to require an exact count of sundown towns to back it up. But Loewen admits that the challenges of uncovering and confirming the existence of each sundown town -- when everything from census figures to local histories proved misleading -- limited his ability to nail down an exact figure. Instead, he writes, "I believe at least 3,000 and perhaps as many as 15,000 independent towns went sundown in the United States, mostly between 1890 and about 1930."

This vagueness, along with Loewen's almost evangelical passion for his material, raises questions of credibility -- or at least of potential overstatement. But Loewen expertly dodges those accusations. He devotes almost an entire chapter to explaining his research -- detailing his rationale for defining sundown towns, laying out his statistical methods and revealing how he triangulated oral history, written sources and census data to arrive at a "confirmation." So when he reports that he's personally verified the existence of roughly 1,000 sundown towns between 1890 and 1930, you believe him. And because he pairs that finding with an analysis of the history, causes and patterns of sundown towns that shows that they were, in many ways, as logical -- and often as violent -- an outgrowth of American racism as lynching, he ultimately makes a strong case that sundown towns were a significant feature of the American landscape. As is often the case when the subject is race, the relative lack of hard evidence ultimately becomes part of the story, rather than a hindrance to it.

As in Anna, whites in about 50 towns used mob violence to expel and keep out African Americans, and many more relied on the threat of violence, Loewen reports. Some towns, he writes, passed "legal" ordinances banning hiring blacks or renting or selling them homes; others relied on citizens to pay informal visits to warn visiting African Americans that they "must not remain in the town." In 1960, the press reported that realtors in Grosse Pointe, Mich., had conceived of an altogether more clinical way to insure racial exclusivity: a "point system" used to assess a potential buyer's eligibility that included a rating for swarthiness.

Often, Sundown Towns argues, a community used a variety of methods in order to remain all-white through the years. To demonstrate this, Loewen charts the course of segregation in Wyandotte, Mich.: In the early 1870s, whites there drove out a black barber; in 1881 and 1888, they expelled the town's black hotel workers; in 1907, four white men beat and robbed a black man at the train station; nine years later, a mob of white townspeople "bombarded" a boardinghouse, driving out all the African Americans and killing one. "In the 1940s," Loewen writes, "police arrested or warned African Americans for 'loitering suspiciously in the business district' or being in the park, and white children stoned African American children in front of Roosevelt High School." In the early 1950s, a University of Pennsylvania professor who grew up in Wyandotte told him, all the members of a black family who moved into town ended up dead.

If Loewen's first priority is to unveil what he calls the "hidden history" of sundown towns, his second is to debunk the widely held idea that when the issue is race, the South is always "the scene of the crime," as James Baldwin famously wrote. The incidence of sundown communities in the South, Loewen reports, was actually far lower than it was in a Midwestern state such as Illinois, in which roughly 70 percent of towns were sundown towns in 1970. "This does not make whites in the traditional South less racist than [those] in . . . other regions of the country," he suggests.

With the rise of the automobile, among other things, came the birth of sundown suburbs. In 1909, Loewen reports, Chevy Chase, Md., became one of the nation's first after the owner of the Chevy Chase Land Company sued a developer to whom it had sold a parcel of land because of rumors that he planned to build affordable housing for African American workers. The company ultimately prevented the development, and the land sat vacant for decades before becoming home to Saks Fifth Avenue, its current resident. No doubt, the owner of the Chevy Chase Land Company would approve of the suburb's current racial makeup; in 2000, Loewen writes, "its 6,183 residents included just 18 people living in families with at least one African American householder." But even that isn't white enough anymore, Loewen charges: Whites are increasingly fleeing nearly all-white suburbs for lily-white exurbs, adding sprawl to the already numerous economic, psychological and sociological tolls of residential segregation.

Much has been written about the history of segregation within American cities, but this is the first full-length study of places that sought to exclude African Americans entirely. Loewen's desire to be exhaustive is therefore understandable. But in this case, exhaustive sometimes means exhausting. The book would have been more enjoyable to read had Loewen focused in depth on a few representative sundown towns, teasing out the history and sociology of the phenomenon in a more narrative, less textbook-like form.

That said, for its meticulous research and passionate chronicling of the complex and often shocking history of whites-only communities, Sundown Towns deserves to become an instant classic in the fields of American race relations, urban studies and cultural geography. After reading it, you'll view your own community, and the whole of the American landscape, more suspiciously -- and rightly so.

Reviewed by Laura Wexler
Copyright 2005, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: FireFly,

I heard about it and wasn't suprised, but didn't realize that most of the towns were located outside of the traditional South.

What a sociological study!

What a commentary on American Life.

I saw a presentation by the suthor on C-SPAN2 several weeks ago.

He lists the towns in the book. He offers some statistics.

He names his sources in the respective towns.

I have made a 'mental note' to buy the book.

PEACE

Jim Chester

This sounds like an interesting read, FireFly. Thanks for the tip.

I'm going to the bookstore tomorrow, so if they have it--I'll get it.

quote:

Originally posted by ma'am:
I heard about it and wasn't suprised, but didn't realize that most of the towns were located outside of the traditional South.

I haven't read it yet, but have listened to a few podcasts where Loewen discusses the book. As for why the sundown towns are located outside of the South, the reason is economics. The South wouldn't want to lose their black, cheap labor force.

He also mentions that some sundown towns did have one or two black people as a convenience. Usually the person was a barber, or in some trade that was central to the livelihood of white residents.

Racism lurking at sundown in Iowa?

An author includes New Market, Ia., in a book that reveals how old laws forbade blacks from being in town after dark

MIKE KILEN
REGISTER STAFF WRITER

January 22, 2006

No African-Americans live in New Market. Only two live in Taylor County.

This may not be news in Iowa. After all, one-fourth of Iowa's 99 counties have 15 or fewer blacks. Ten counties have fewer than 10.

Many residents of Taylor County say it is a logical development, part of the overall trend that has emptied the rural Iowa landscape. There are no jobs for blacks in the county. Why would they relocate there?

But author James Loewen doesn't buy it. He says the small numbers or total absence of black residents in the rural areas and suburbs of the Midwest is no accident. It's the fallout of a practice that began in the 1890s when thousands of communities across the country established towns for whites only, because blacks were seen as unfit or inferior to whites.

In scores of towns in the Midwest, Loewen found, ugly signs were posted that warned blacks: "N-----, Don't let the sun go down on you" here. Loewen was told that the town of Manning had such a sign. The town has no blacks among its nearly 1,500 residents. Jeff Clothier of Colfax remembers seeing the sign in his grandmother's photo collection, which was thrown away in her later years.

"She said she thought someone had put up that sign and that it wasn't done officially by anyone representing the town," Clothier said.

Other communities, including at least two in Taylor County, had city ordinances barring blacks from the town after dark. In more extreme cases, they were chased out of town with suspicious fires, schoolyard beatings and law enforcement harassment.

"Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism" (The New Press, $29.95) is said to be the first book to chronicle the practice. Most would assume this systematic racism took place in the Deep South, where it was actually rare.

But in the Midwest, as many as 15,000 towns could have been sundown towns.

"I wanted the subtitle to be 'The History of Ethnic Cleansing,' but the New Press wouldn't let me," said Loewen, an emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Vermont. "Most Americans think ethnic cleansing means killing everybody. It's not. It's driving people out."

The sundown era began in 1890 after the Wounded Knee massacre changed the mind-set that it was OK to discriminate, Loewen said. That was followed by a Mississippi law removing blacks from citizenship and the U.S. Senate's failure to pass a bill for fair elections in 1890.

From 1890 to 1940, blacks were kept out of towns in Illinois and Iowa and other Midwest states. The author identified a subregion of counties along the Missouri-Iowa border that he calls a sundown region.

In Iowa's southern tier counties, Loewen said, residents feared an influx of blacks coming from Missouri after the Civil War and took steps to keep them out.

Decades later, the effects are still evident, he said. Many sundown towns remain nearly all-white today.

"Who knows how many sundown towns are in Iowa?" said Loewen, who added that despite six years of research, he couldn't travel to every town.

If he had time, he said, he could uncover many more. Looking at census numbers, Loewen identified towns with nine or fewer blacks and talked to local historians, genealogists and longtime residents. Many openly told him of past practices, even though the ordinances were hard to find.

"The fact that everyone knows it exists has the same effect as having it in written form," he said.

He identified New Market, Ia., as a sundown town.

A trip to Taylor County would show why.

TAYLOR COUNTY, sitting on the Missouri border in southwest Iowa, is one of Iowa's smallest counties, with 6,689 residents.

New Market, population 456, has little left on its main street, although two employers have erected new buildings and there is still hope for the future.

There are no blacks in New Market and, according to the 2000 census, just two in the county. Today, the Des Moines Sunday Register confirmed, at least three black students live in Taylor County. School officials in nearby Lenox say two black students are enrolled; Bedford officials count one. The students couldn't be reached for this story.

In 1880, there were 130 blacks in Taylor County.

Most people in town are familiar with the old sundown ordinance, although a search of city archives can't confirm it.

"My high school history teacher told me about it in 1985," said New Market Mayor Frank Sefrit. "He'd gone down and dug it up one day. I was embarrassed. But things have changed. I know my grandfather was racist, plain as day. But I'd say in the last 50 years, you don't see that kind of thing."

In fact, Loewen writes, there is evidence that the New Market ordinance had the force of law as late as the mid-1980s.

University of Northern Iowa history professor John Baskerville, who is black, told Loewen he was in a band that played in New Market.

According to Baskerville, the local sheriff notified City Council members at the concert that an ordinance prohibited a "colored" person from being in town after dark. At the time, the council members agreed to suspend the law "for the night."

"New Market's sundown ordinance went right back into effect the following night," Loewen writes.

Eva Fine, a member of the City Council at the time, said the ordinance was like many still on the books in small towns. People ignored it.

"We didn't think anything of it," she said.

Both she and Earl Lewis, also on the council in the mid-1980s, say they remember no move to overturn the ordinance. "It didn't happen," Lewis said.

The current Taylor County sheriff, Lonnie Weed, said law enforcement officials would technically have to enforce a city ordinance. "But something like that, no way I would enforce it."

City clerks in both Lenox and New Market say they, too, remember the sundown ordinances in their towns.

"Lenox was violently opposed to blacks. It was well-known," said Helen Janson, the president of the Taylor County Historical Society.

Ask old-timers playing cards at the community center in New Market, and there are knowing nods.

"One night, one slept in the old chicken brooding house over there," said Floyd Jobe, 80, pointing his hand of cards to the west. "They ran him out of town. Last I saw him, he was heading north. I talked to the guys that did it. It was about 40 or 50 years ago."

Jobe remembered another ugly incident. In Maryville, Mo., a few miles south across the border, Velma Colter, a 20-year-old schoolteacher, was killed in 1930. Raymond Gunn, 27, a black man, was accused of the murder.

While Gunn was being detained, a lynch mob took him to the schoolhouse where the teacher had been killed and burned him alive on the roof of the school as hundreds of spectators watched.

Such dramatic events often had a chilling effect that would last for decades, Loewen said.

After the killing, "a great many blacks left town," said Thomas Carneal, a retired history teacher at Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville.

But the exodus of blacks predates the lynch mob, he said. Many had already moved to Omaha and Des Moines. Even today, blacks who attend the Maryville university often move away to seek better opportunities and black culture in other areas, he said.

OTHER HISTORIANS in Iowa agree with Loewen's documentation of subtle racism in Iowa, but argue that most of the movement away from the state was for economic reasons.

More blacks did live in rural Iowa once. In 1900, there were 325 black farmers. By the 1990s, there were only 33.

Other blacks worked on railroads or in hotels when small-town Iowa was thriving.

Hal Chase, who specializes in black history at Des Moines Area Community College and edited "Outside In: African-American History in Iowa," said the black population in Iowa did increase over the years, but the population settled in bigger Iowa cities for employment.

"But I wouldn't disagree that aversive white racism existed, rather than the kind you would see in Alabama or Texas," he said. "The thesis that active white racism drove people out — you'll look hard for evidence of that in Iowa. But as far as not selling homes to blacks, restrictive covenants, railroad unions that didn't hire blacks — that was real."

One black family from Taylor County tells a different story.

Adam and Martha Johnson were two of Iowa's early black farmers when they bought a farm in Taylor County near Gravity in the 1880s. From this farm, granddaughter Lulu Johnson was raised and later went on to earn a doctorate in history from the University of Iowa, one of the first black women in Iowa to do so.

"They remember having good experiences down there," said Kim Jackson of Des Moines. Lulu was her great-aunt. "They always went back for reunions."

Loewen says the double standard in Iowa was "tragic" because the state was progressive early on, passing an act to allow African-Americans the right to vote before the 15th Amendment passed.

"They did so because they thought it was right," he said. "Then many Iowa towns backslid and became all white on purpose. That's heartbreaking."

It remains a puzzle that Iowa counties with only a handful of blacks sit next to those with many. That was true historically, and it holds true today.

In Page County, directly west of Taylor County with its two black residents, there are 313. Some say it's because of the old coal mines that hired blacks decades ago near Clarinda. But the New Market area also had coal mines.

"Twenty years ago when I was doing research on coal mining towns, I could lay out a map and know which camps hired black miners and which didn't. It was like a checkerboard," said Dorothy Schwieder, an Iowa historian. "I couldn't find any reason to explain that."

LOEWEN CLAIMS the practices weren't accidental, and the attitudes prevail decades later.

Look no farther than Lenox.

Just 10 years ago, when Stanton met Lenox in a high school football game, a racial incident erupted.

Dave Burham, a biracial Stanton player, had recently moved to Iowa to live with his grandfather, Bobby Burham. The 15-year-old claimed he was beaten following a game and racial slurs were directed toward him.

"Dave is of mixed race," said Bobby Burham of his white daughter's son. "As he was leaving the field, fans had gathered at the exit. He had a Mohawk and someone yelled, 'Nice hair, n-----.' Dave had a sense of humor. He told them it was Velcro that kept his helmet on."

Then, his grandfather reports, he was pushed in the back; students and adults piled on top of him, kicking and swinging until the Stanton football coach noticed the mayhem and rescued him.

A year later, a Taylor County grand jury decided no charges would be filed. Athletic events were canceled between the two schools.

Burham asked his grandparents to drop the matter and played on the school's basketball team. He was booed by the opposing fans when he touched the ball, Burham recalls. His grandson moved back to Kansas City without finishing the school year and is now studying to be a nurse.

Bobby Burham, who is 72 and lives in Clarinda in Page County, calls Taylor County home to a "bunch of rednecks. People are prejudiced against something they are not."

Sheriff Lonnie Weed disagrees. "Everybody says racial jokes, but nobody holds anything against" people of other races or ethnic origins, he said. He points to the population of Latinos in Lenox.

Weed said he remembers the Burham incident, but it was one of only a couple of racial disturbances in the county.

True integration of rural Iowa, however, will take effort and determination.

Eric Knoth, owner of Dedicated Business Solutions in New Market, said he knew about the ordinance and has seen how small towns nurture their prejudices subtly.

"I had one black employee. When he walked in, there were some wide eyes around here," he said. "But all my top managers are women. I'm from California. I don't care if they're green."

Loewen said there's no reason black people shouldn't live in former sundown towns today, despite tough economic times.

"People will move into dying towns, whether for relationships or by happenstance," he said.

To move forward, the rural Midwest will have to put the past behind it with official action, Loewen said.

Sundown towns need to apologize publicly for any racist actions and make reparations if it can be proved that blacks were overtly driven out. Loewen said the federal government should promote integration by ending mortgage interest tax deductions for counties that don't.

"It's a civil rights act that won't cost a dime," he said.

http://www.dmregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20...01220302/1001/NEWS01

I noticed another book covering the same area as Loewen's other book 'Lies My Teacher Told Me' about what version of history is taught in US secondary schools.
It's a new paperback called 'History Lessons' - don't recall the author, but it's about America's telling of history.

The cover shows an earnest looking, girl around 8-10yrs old, wearing spectacles, sitting in the class room.

What's interesting is though, that when I pointed out the book to a work associate from Belaruse (sp?) she said "oh, that girl's wearing the same school uniform I wore"!!

So whether there the book looks through a 'russian' lens on America, or whether the book designer used dodgy clip art remains to be seen.