Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism

James Loewen

The New Press, Sep 29, 2005 - History - 562 pages

“Don’t let the sun go down on you in this town.” We equate these words with the Jim Crow South but, in a sweeping analysis of American residential patterns, award-winning and bestselling author James W. Loewen demonstrates that strict racial exclusion was the norm in American towns and villages from sea to shining sea for much of the twentieth century.

Weaving history, personal narrative, and hard-nosed analysis, Loewen shows that the sundown town was—and is—an American institution with a powerful and disturbing history of its own, told here for the first time. In Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Missouri, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere, sundown towns were created in waves of violence in the early decades of the twentieth century, and then maintained well into the contemporary era.

Sundown Towns redraws the map of race relations, extending the lines of racial oppression through the backyard of millions of Americans—and lobbing an intellectual hand grenade into the debates over race and racism today.

What people are saying

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - KingRat - LibraryThing

James Loewen is the well-known author of Lies My Teacher Told Me which is an excellent primer on the portions of history that aren’t really covered in school. Sundown Towns is his treatment of the ...

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - Cheryl_in_CC_NV - LibraryThing

Context - I'm white, and I grew up in a small town in the North. Well, I for one am not surprised to learn how many sundown towns there were, and that many still exist. I do believe it gets easier ...

Contents

• 26008 Part 2: 45
• 26008 Part 3: 135
• 26008 Part 4: 227
• 26008 Part 5: 297
• 26008 Part 6: 377
• 26008 Backmatter: 453
• 26008 Photo credits: 525
• 26008 Index: 527

About the author

Social scientist and professor James Loewen is an outspoken critic of "feel-good" history. In his book "Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American Textbook Got Wrong" (1996) he debunks the myths and exposes the omissions he feels are taught in the nation's high schools. Disturbed by his college students' lack of knowledge of history and concerned about minority misconceptions, Loewen spent two years at the Smithsonian analyzing 12 leading history texts and 11 years writing this best-selling indictment of history teaching. Loewen believes that controversy has been removed from classrooms in favor of blind patriotism. "Any history book that celebrates, rather than examines, our heritage has the by-product, intended or not, of alienating all those in the 'out group', those who have not become affluent, and denies them a tool for understanding their own group's lack of success." Loewen's other books include ""Mississippi: Conflict and Change" (1974, rev. 1980), a revisionist history of the state written with a coalition of students and faculty at Tougaloo College, Mississippi; "Mississippi Chinese: Between Black and White" (1971), a study of this minority's role in society; "Social Science in the Courtroom" (1983), based on the author's experiences as an expert witness in civil rights cases and "The Truth About Columbus: A Subversively True Poster Book For A Dubiously Celebratory Occasion" (1992). In addition, the author is a frequent contributor to professional publications, sometimes under the pseudonym James Lyons. James W. Loewen was born February 6, 1942 in Decatur, Illinois and was educated at Carleton College (B.A., 1964) and Harvard University (M.A, 1967; Ph.D., 1968). He was a sociologist and teacher specializing in race relations at Tougaloo College, Mississippi from 1968 to 1974.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism
• Author: James Loewen
• Publisher: The New Press, 2005
• ISBN: 1595586741, 9781595586742
• Length: 562 pages
• Subjects: History / United States / 20th Century; Social Science / Discrimination & Race Relations; Social Science / Minority Studies