(The state of Missouri offered no public response to the NAACP but did make a Black woman the face of its tourism campaign last year.)Īnd in 2020, a group called the Defund San Antonio Police Department Coalition issued a travel warning for San Antonio, labeling the city as a sundown town. The NAACP also referenced anecdotal examples of hate crimes, and data which showed Black motorists were 75% more likely to be pulled over and stopped and searched by police enforcement than their white counterparts. 43 would require employees prove that their protected characteristics were a “motivating factor” for being discriminated against when previously the requirement was that simply showed it was a “contributing factor.” The decision was in response to a bill designed to limit discrimination lawsuits by making changes to the Missouri Human Rights Act. In 2017, the NAACP issued a travel warning for the entire state of Missouri, a first for the organization. Last year the concept was portrayed on the premiere episode of HBO’s Lovecraft Country in which the three protagonists are forced to flee a town while being stalked by a police officer.Īctivist organizations have used the term more recently. In her 1969 memoir I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, the late poet Maya Angelou describes Mississippi with the phrase, “Don’t Let the Sun Set on You Here, Nigger, Mississippi.” The same sentiment would appear on signage posted at city boundaries of sundown towns, making clear that Black people were not welcome and risked their lives if they dared to defy the decree. They are all over the US and concentrated particularly in the Midwest, he says.ĭespite the phenomenon, historical references to sundown towns are few and often wrapped into tales of the expulsion of Black communities in places like Forsyth County and Anna, Illinois, which is allegedly known colloquially to be an acronym for “Ain’t No Niggers Allowed.” But these towns aren’t just in the South. “The racism and prejudice is still in those towns, the mindset from the Jim Crow era is passed down, and these people have no exposure because they don't get out.”Īccording to Loewen’s rolling database, at least 60 of Kentucky’s 782 towns are believed to be or previously have been considered sundown towns. I'm being naive, traveling, but they don't travel to certain parts of the country because certain people have those mindsets,” Williams told BuzzFeed News. “A lot of African Americans don't really travel to certain parts of the country.
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