sundown town

noun

plural sundown towns

: a predominantly white community that prevents or has a history of preventing non-white and especially Black residence through some combination of policy, expulsion, intimidation, and violence

After the Civil War, white officials and residents established sundown towns, where Black people within its borders were warned not to "let the sun set on them." That meant they needed to be gone before nightfall. It was a means of controlling, through intimidation and violence, Black lives.

—Renee Graham

… municipal policies to keep out Chinese Americans mostly relaxed in the 1970s or even earlier, while sundown towns vis-à-vis African Americans lasted much longer.

—James W. Loewen

The U.S. … is dotted with former sundown towns where people of color suffered myriad degradations …

—Megan Ulu-Lani Boyanton

The most insidious reality black motorists had to accept when traveling along Route 66 was that there was virtually no way to know what was coming up around the bend. And there was no such thing as a list of sundown towns to assist them in planning their itinerary.

—Candacy Taylor

Each sundown town has to search its own soul and reckon with a past that still threatens the lives of non-white individuals.

—Sheila Lettsome

Word History

First Known Use

1936, in the meaning defined above