A Hidden Dimension of American Racism - Sundown Towns

I gave this book three stars - not because of the subject matter, but due to poor proofreading and/or fact checking.

I was born in a sundown town and we had to leave when I was a baby because my father was a person of color. Since I now live in a primarily Scandinavian area (thought definitely not "whites only") I decided to look in the index and check out the history of my current town. I saw three pages with references to my city due to horrendous lynchings of three African-American men in June of 1920. Books have been written about the incident and we have a memorial dedicated to the three men. It was a bad time in our history, so I expected there to be a references to it in this book.

On two separate pages in the index, 17 pages apart, the lynchings were mentioned. However, on one page the lynchings were said to have occurred in 1919. On the other page, the date was 1920.

I am a stickler for getting things like dates or statistics correct when put in print. I realize it may sound really ridiculous, but if an error was made discussing a city with which I am familiar, how do I know that numerous errors weren't made throughout the book with areas I don't know? This type of thing really bothers me and I almost don't want to invest the time in reading the rest of the book, knowing that errors could be made and I would not have a clue as to what was accurate.

I do not want to "throw away the baby with the bathwater," but I will read this book with a more jaundiced eye now. I know I'll love and appreciate the content but I can't give it five stars if I cannot trust the accuracy--and how will I possibly know? It's a huge book filled with statistics and dates. It makes tons of accusations about numerous towns throughout the United States and backs these accusations up oftentimes with statistics. I truly am not a nitpicker except when it comes to non-fiction books, but errors are very disappointing.

The subject of Sundown Towns *must* be discussed in schools and other places. It was ignored when I was growing up (I didn't learn about it until I was an adult and my father told me). Most of the general public are completely ignorant of Sundown Towns, and I'm doing my best to get the word out about them.

I had high hopes for the book and it is OK. The problem is that it just seems to repeat the same information over and over again. This could of easily been 1/3 the length and still gotten the message across.

The author did an outstanding job in chronicling the attitudes of the various towns across America, and why they are the way they are. Many of these attitudes still exist, and what surprised me was that a town within minutes from where I live, was mentioned, as a Sundown Town. The surprise came not about the town, but that the author had not missed it in his review of Sundown Towns in America. This book is a good read for all Americans, and reflects that a lot of work still needs to be accomplished if it is to truly be the land of the free, and the home of the brave.

This reviewer was born in Chicago - long known as one of the most racially segregated big cities in America - and grew up in a sundown town - a working-class, industrial suburb west of Chicago. It was understood that no African-Americans were allowed to live in Franklin Park, even though hundreds came into town every day to work in the factories every day.

James Loewen has written a book that is eye-opening, comprehensive and persuasive. His book contains a wealth of history detailing the grim reality of systematic discrimination strictly limiting where African-Americans were allowed to live during most of the 20th Century. In addition to documenting how racial restrictions worked, Loewen connects the dots to explain how segregation causes inequality.

Loewen grew up in central Illinois, and started his research in his home state. He initially believed racial exclusion from towns had been limited to a handful of places. As his research progressed, he came to realize there was a widespread pattern in northern states.

During the first half of the 20th Century, for example, African Americans moved to Detroit, but not to four adjacent suburbs next to the City: Dearborn, Grosse Pointe, Melvindale and Warren. Thousands of blacks who worked at the auto plants in Dearborn and Warren would've moved to such close-in suburbs had they been welcome. Dearborn's longtime mayor, Orville Hubbard (1942-1978), told a reporter that "as far as he was concerned, it was against the law for Negroes to live in his suburb. `They can't get in here. We watch it.'" Whites in the Detroit area were five times more likely than African Americans, controlling for income, to live in the suburbs. At least 47 of 59 suburbs outside Detroit were overwhelmingly white, decade after decade.

Based on his research, Loewen concludes that thousands of towns and cities across the North excluded African-Americans from living there from about 1890 until late in the 20th century. This exclusion was enforced either by ordinances warning African Americans and sometimes other minorities to be out of town by sunset, or by informal means such as harassing any blacks who violated the rule. Ordinances in many towns also prohibited blacks from renting or owning property.

Ironically, sundown towns were rare in the South, where African-Americans were prevented from voting. "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. Probably a majority of all incorporated places kept out African Americans" outside the South.

The fact is that racial exclusion and segregation did not always exist. African Americans lived in many places prior to 1890 where they no longer resided thereafter. Some towns and even counties drove out their black residents and then posted the signs, while some allowed a single black household as an exception to the rule.

Most Americans are familiar with the Jim Crow laws and lynching in the South after the Civil War. Far less well known is the fact that many in the North did not welcome African Americans, before, during or after the war to free the slaves. The Illinois state constitution of 1848, for example, provided that the General Assembly shall adopt laws prohibiting "free persons of color from immigrating to and settling in this state."

African-Americans were not the sole victims of racial exclusion. Until about 1884, Chinese Americans lived in virtually every town in the West, but between 1885-1920, dozens of communities drove out their entire Chinese population.

There was a great black migration from the South to the North starting about 1915, which makes the absolute declines in black population in many northern counties all the more remarkable. In Illinois, there were zero counties in 1890 with no black residents, and only six with fewer than ten, but by 1930 there were six all-white counties and 17 with fewer than ten. Missouri went from no counties without black residents in 1890 to 12 in 1930. Nebraska went from 9 to 28; Wisconsin from 8-16, Idaho from 1 to 14.

By 1970, when the number of sundown towns was probably at the zenith, there were 671 municipalities in Illinois, and 474 or 71% were all-white. Loewen found evidence (beyond census data) of racial exclusion policies from 146 of the 424 all-white towns larger than 1,000 people, and has confirmed 145 of 146 as sundown towns. Based upon the towns he examined, the probability is that a high proportion of the remaining all-white towns were also all-white-on-purpose. In addition, he confirmed that 50 Illinois hamlets with fewer than 1,000 residents also were sundown towns.

It wasn't just small towns that became more segregated. Big cities became markedly more segregated in housing patterns after 1890 and 1900. Prior to 1890, poor neighborhoods and even some middle-class ones had been racially integrated. By 1940, sharply segregated neighborhoods were the norm and the trend continued.

Ethnic cleansing was achieved by violence, intimidation, ordinance, and informal actions by police. Violence was used to force out African Americans abruptly. Decatur in northeast Indiana, for instance, went sundown in 1902 after a mob drove the last black residents out of town. Decatur is the county seat of Adams County, which had not a single black household for decades, and reported only five black residents a century later.

Bigger riots directed at nonwhites have been better recorded in history than smaller ones, and occurred in dozens of towns including Springfield, Illinois in 1908, East St. Louis, Illinois in 1917, Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1921, Johnstown, Pennsylvania in 1923 and Lincoln, Nebraska in 1929.

The rioters in Springfield, Illinois over two days in 1908 lynched two innocent black men, burned down the black business district and blocks of black homes, and chased about two-thirds of the black residents out of town before the state militia intervened. Not a single perpetrator was ever convicted for murder, arson or other crime against the victims. The NAACP was founded in Springfield in response to these hate crimes.

Two days after the riot in Springfield, whites in Buffalo, 12 miles east, became all-white by threatening to shoot any blacks who stayed in the town, which has remained all white since Aug. 17,1908. Eight were killed in Romeoville, Illinois when whites expelled all the town's African Americans in 1893. Other race riots in small Illinois towns came in East Alton and Spring Valley (1893), Virden (1898), Pana (1899), Carterville (1901), Eldorado (1902), Anna-Jonesboro (1909), West Frankfort (1920), and Vienna (1954).

The increasing frequency of mass "spectacle lynchings" played a role in spreading fear and creating sundown towns. Announced in advance, these events drew hundreds or thousands of spectators to public murders. The lynching of a black man by whites from Toluca and Lacon, Illinois, north of Peoria, in 1898 sparked an exodus of black residents from those towns. Though lynchings are usually associated with the South, the truth is that - controlling for the size of the black population - lynchings were as common in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and California as in southern states.

All-white suburbs were no accident. Sundown suburbs, beginning around 1900, achieved racial segregation by design. Elite suburbs built by a single developer kept out African Americans from the beginning, including Park Forest, Illinois, a suburb south of Chicago. Kenilworth, Illinois, two suburbs north of Chicago, incorporated as all-white town; "sales to Caucasians only" was part of the suburb's founding documents. Jews were also unwelcome in Kenilworth, as well as in Lake Forest, Barrington and Palatine, according to the Anti-Defamation League. Kenilworth didn't admit Jews until the 1970s.

The three Levittowns - in New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania - were built by Levitt & Sons who refused to sell to blacks for two decades after WWII. Consequently, not a single one of the Long Island Levittown's 82,000 residents was black in 1960. Oak Park, Illinois, which abuts Chicago's west side, was originally a sundown suburb, as Dr. Percy Julian and his wife, both Ph.Ds, found out when they tried to move there in 1950. By 1970, just 500 black families lived in white suburban Chicago, and most of them were confined to 5 or 6 towns.

After 1917, when the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional openly anti-black ordinances, most sundown suburbs resorted to racially restrictive covenants, which were part of the deed. Many suburbs refused to approve developments without restrictive covenants. In addition, the FHA refused to insure loans without them. Consequently, covenants covering the entire town were just as effective as ordinances in keeping towns all-white.

The Chicago Real Estate Board started using restrictive covenants in 1919, and by 1940, more than 80 percent of the Chicago area was so covered; "across the US, exclusionary covenants were the rule rather than the exception."
The Federal Housing Administration advocated restrictive covenants, its Manual containing a model covenant until 1948, making it clear that the government believed black families were a danger from which whites required protection. In 1938, the FHA held that to retain "neighborhood stability, it is necessary that its properties shall continue to be occupied by the same social and racial classes."

FHA and VA loans were "the most important single cause of postwar suburbanization." More than 98% of the home loans guaranteed by the FHA and VA after WWII were available only to whites. More single-family homes were purchased in the decade after the war than during the previous 150 years. African Americans were shut out of the suburbs and the surest route to wealth accumulation - federally subsidized home ownership - which includes the mortgage interest deduction for owners, not renters.

The proportion of African Americans living in suburbia was 4.6% in 1950, and 4.2% in 1970, during the era of explosive suburban growth. The huge modern disparity in median household wealth between whites and blacks - 20 to 1 - can be attributed in large part to housing appreciation that whites enjoyed since the late 1940s.

When the feds did spend money on black housing, it was in huge high-rise projects concentrated in the inner city. Vacant land was cheaper in the suburbs. To justify building on higher priced land that needed to be cleared in the central cities, officials piled hundreds of units onto the tracts.

Federal policy changed in 1968 with passage of the Fair Housing Act, which prohibits racial discrimination in the sale, rental and financing of housing. But HUD had no enforcement powers, and victims had to litigate themselves. Consequently, discrimination went underground, and involved steering, lying, stalling and creating obstacles for blacks seeking to buy in white areas.

"A striking characteristic of sundown towns is their durability," given the mobility of Americans, including African Americans. That durability is due to a variety of enforcement mechanisms that keep towns all-white decade after decade. White boys and young men would attack or threaten to attack blacks who came through town; in Pana, Illinois, for instance, black porters would hide under the seats when their trains went through Pana. Gas stations refused to sell to black motorists in some towns, such as Mt. Olive and Gillespie, Illinois, where the policy lasted through the 1950s.

"Driving While Black" has long been a reason for police to pull over black motorists. Being pulled over frequently and searched makes it uncomfortable for African Americans to live or work in towns where officers know they don't live and therefore pull them over on sight. Even after the sundown sign was removed in Gillespie, Illinois near St. Louis in the early 1960s, it was still an unwritten rule that black people would not be tolerated in town.

After the federal law made it difficult to exclude blacks openly, suburbs did it by controlling the kind of development allowed. Zoning laws typically allowed only single-family housing and imposed minimum lot sizes, such as 5 acres in South Barrington, Illinois. The DuPage County Housing Authority was established in 1942, but had yet to construct a single unit 30 years later by 1972. Some sundown towns passed ordinances requiring public employees to live in town; this made African Americans ineligible for future openings, since they would first have to move in.

Violence was also used after ordinances and covenants were struck down, and when steering, discriminatory lending and the town's reputation didn't suffice. The most extensive violence occurred in the North during the two decades following WWII. In Chicago during just the first two years after WWII, whites bombed 167 homes bought or rented by African Americans in white neighborhoods, killing four, crippling eight and injuring scores of others. Percy Julian's home in Oak Park suffered both bomb and arson attacks in 1950. The first black family to enter suburban Deerfield, Illinois moved out of their rented apartment after windows were broken and excrement smeared on the walls.

Starting in 1976, however, 5,000 African American families were located into predominantly white communities under the Gautreaux litigation against the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA). Compared to black families who weren't selected for the move, black families in white neighborhoods prospered. Some 95% of children graduated from high school and 54% went to college, despite the fact that the Gautreaux families were generally headed by single mothers on welfare, who nonetheless had remarkable outcomes. Researcher James Rosenbaum concluded that residential segregation was the problem, promoting hopelessness and keeping poor black families from contact with the larger society. It is estimated that the quality of life across American cities would improve markedly if housing segregation were cut in half. For some reason, this solution to urban ills never makes the politicians' to-do list.

The problems of inner-cities are rarely attributed to the impact of sundown suburbs, but are typically blamed upon the relatively powerless ghetto residents. Of 167 sundown towns in Illinois, about 40 percent still zero black residents as of 2000. In the Milwaukee metro area, an astonishing 96 percent of all African Americans live in Milwaukee, an indicator that sundown suburbs are still going strong.

When sundown suburbs today have a handful of black residents, that may allow denial that the town kept out blacks for decades, and may make it seem "natural" that a town is less than 5 percent or 1 percent black. Token desegregation is also used to claim racism is over. Yet black students are more likely to go to segregated schools today than they were several decades ago.

The reality is that African Americans remain underrepresented in suburbia, and those who do live there are concentrated in relatively few towns. Suburban Chicago has a typical pattern: Almost all blacks who moved to suburbs during the 1960s went to just 15 of 237 suburbs. By 1980, nine of Chicago's 285 suburbs were 30-50% black, while 117 were less than 1% black. Kane County was about six percent black in 2000, but 96 percent of the African Americans lived in two towns, Elgin and Aurora.

"Sundown suburbs are the key reason why geographer Jeff Crump was able to maintain in 2003 that `cities in the US are the most racially segregated urban areas in the world.'" The normal processes of the marketplace would result in a sprinkling of African Americans everywhere, albeit with some areas of concentration, like the distribution of, say, Italian Americans.

It would be comforting to believe that racial segregation during the 20th Century was mainly due to freedom of choice, and that policies enforcing it were aberrations. The unvarnished truth, asserts Loewen, is that racial segregation has not occurred "naturally" in this country, but is in large part the result of deliberate government policies.

Americans today almost universally denounce racism, but they don't want to discuss racial segregation, even though residential segregation persists at high levels. The status quo is considered appropriate, with all-or-predominately white towns and schools. Northern whites, Loewen argues, are comforted by their misapprehension that discriminatory laws were the exclusive province of Southern racists.

Americans typically ignore the effects that discriminatory laws have had in creating ghettos, preferring to blame the poor for their poverty. It's easier to ignore the fact that residential segregation keeps black students out of better suburban schools, and it isolates African-Americans from job opportunities, which have grown in white suburbs much faster than elsewhere. Segregation also isolates blacks from social networks where jobs openings are discussed. Detroit - the nation's most segregated metro area in 2000 - illustrates the harm caused by hyper-segregation. Detroit was 82 percent black in 2000, surrounded by sundown suburbs.

Some conservatives (try to attribute segregation to simple economics, arguing it's not race discrimination that kept blacks out of suburbs, but the high cost of housing. That may be true for a handful of elite towns such as Kenilworth, but it doesn't explain why blue collar towns with affordable housing and factory jobs, like Cicero or Franklin Park, had no black residents for many decades. Controlling for income, fewer than half the expected proportion of blacks live in most suburbs. Besides, economics hasn't kept poor whites and Latinos from living in suburbia.

So what should be done now? Loewen recommends the following:

* Create Truth and Reconciliation Commissions to investigate how towns and counties became and remained all-white.
* Enact a Residents Rights Act, modeled on the 1965 federal Voting Rights Act, (which the Supreme Court struck down in 2013).
* Apologize and compensate to remedy for the real harm government caused in promoting segregation.
* Sanction recalcitrant towns that persist in exclusionary policies.

None of that will happen so long as most Americans deny there is or has been any harm done. The problem today, says Loewen, is that towns don't admit they are all-white on purpose.

Most Americans today, even conservatives, agree with the landmark Brown decision that desegregated the public schools. As the Supreme Court said in that decision, when whites segregated schools, they were implying black inferiority. This made the segregated school inherently unequal. Americans have never applied that logic to segregated towns, preferring the comfortable fiction that stark racial separation in housing is merely a function of choice and income.

"Until we solve the problem of sundown neighborhoods and towns," writes Loewen, "we do not have a chance of solving America's race problem." ###

Quite disturbing to read, this book nonetheless educated me and changed my attitude toward race relations in the USA. I'm no liberal, but any compassionate person would be horrified at the extensive and shameful history of how African-Americans were involuntarily pushed into urban ghettos and were then saddled with the disadvantages that followed from that while being blamed for it themselves. This litany of violently segregated small towns in America (mostly in the North, strangely enough) truly is a "hidden" history for whites of my generation (GenX) and younger. It's similar to how I was never taught in school anything about the Vietnam War either, until the popular films of the 1980s and my own personal reading on the subject in college. Apparently some historical topics are too embarrassing to even broach to our children.

I'm upset to hear of the racial history of the Arkansas/Missouri Ozarks, a beautiful and friendly region I spent many childhood summers in and where my grandmother still lives today. Happily, it may be opening up there because I know Eureka Springs in particular has developed a thriving gay community. Hopefully that will extend to other minorities as well throughout the region.

Loewen really throws down the gauntlet with his proposed solutions for improving race relations in the USA.

On the writing side, many of the anecdotes and arguments are repeated in multiple chapters to illustrate different angles of his research. I feel that the book could have been shorter by as many as 100-150 pages and been a leaner, sharper read without losing any impact. It's a statistic-heavy book of 450 pages that gets tedious despite the important subject matter. But I'm glad I finished it.

I find James W. Loewen's books to be similar to a boring lecture in a university lab. He focuses on one view taking nothing else into consideration for his findings. Part of his proof is hearsay from stories that people share and possibly never experienced or saw. I hope he's never on a jury with me on trial. He would convict you for word of mouth. A sociologist should know better than to base findings on stories instead of proven facts. Mr Loewen also refers to pictures to prove his theory but, he never shares any. I live in a former sundown town and have heard the stories of posted signs. Yet nobody has ever been able to show me one. So I say it is likely but, it isn't proven.

Every person in the USA needs to read this book!
Unfortunately a form of this hatred exists now. There are many cities where it is not safe for my son to go. Blatant racism rears its ugly head in some of these cities and towns before as well as after sundown even now in 2018. I am a Caucasian woman, 64 years old who adopted 5 children, all different nationalities and and skin colors. It breaks my heart what I have seen and heard throughout my state of Indiana. Recently, Our family stopped in a little restaurant by Wabash College. Our order was brought to our table and we were asked to eat quickly, then leave and never return.
This talented author tells it like it is. The hate has got to stop.

Many will say that this book is about the distant past. However, on a talk the author gave on C-Span, he made this point: the great postwar expansion of suburbia was implicitly, even explicitly, exclusionary. The FHA did not give loans in integrated neighborhoods, nor in all-black neighborhoods and thus blacks were left out of the great expansion of wealth in the postwar period. The financial worth of blacks is 1/11th that of whites, and that basically means home ownership.

One suggestion he makes? Remove mortgage deductability in segregated communities.

As far as content and subject matter, this book deserves a '5'. It is well researched and covers the phenomenons of sundown towns, northern rascism, the creation of the black inner cities as a reaction to white prejudice, the nadir of black racism, and a guideline to inch ourselves out of this morass. It was a frightening look in the mirror for someone who grew up in an all white town, attended an all white high school and college and wondered why so many black people choose to live in the inner city. While these life areas are somewhat better in my world than they were in the past, there is still a great deal of distance to go before we fully act on the concept that ...."all men are created equal." This is a 'must read' for anyone wants this statement to apply to everyone. We all must soon realize that white supremacy is a concept that has long outlived its religious roots and its poorly formed and primal definition.

As far as organizational writing style and redundancy, this book deserves a '3'. Far greater effort should have been put into the editing portion of this publication before it was released. While still a good book, it would have been more powerful by eliminating all of the repetitions, was written in a chronological sequence and the size of the text was cut to about 300 pages.

I remember when he was travelling throughout the country interviewing people for this book.

Books like this should be incentive for all young people. This should teach them to appreciate the freedoms and rights that we have today. Things that people in the past could only dream about.

This should help us all learn humility and have a good sense of fairplay.

My work has taken me throughout rural Illinois, and I am familiar with most of the small Illinois towns cited in the book. He has taken a little-known facet of race relations and exposed some facts that need to be known. I think he has done a reasonable job on the history of the situation, but some generalizations and simple errors leave his treatment open to question. I think he leads the reader to conclude that the process of exclusion was a more organized and rigid effort than it likely was. There are also many minor factual errors. As a personal example, my own home town was cited more than once as one where African-Americans were always welcome. Maybe so, but in the 20 years that I was growing up there, 1940s thru 1960s, there was only one old man, a widower, that I ever was aware of as a resident. The situation hasn't significantly changed since then, other than nursing home residents. So I don't know what the author based this conclusion on.

The author was also so seemingly infatuated with the term "Sundown Towns" that he repeated it over, and over and over ad nauseum. And used it so freely in references such as "possible Sundown Town", "suspected Sundown Town", "likely Sundown Town" often without much factual basis to back this up, that it began to be annoying and lost its impact. The book began to be a chore to read, and it's unfortunate, because with some good editing, this very important subject could have been riveting, rather than tedious.

However, I did learn a lot, and I think the book is worth the time it takes to read and absorb. On this basis alone, I gave it four stars.

I am surprised at how few people have reviewed this book. I fear that it hits too close to home (literally), and people don't want to think about deliberate, often violent, racial exclusion in middle America.
I grew up in northern Illinois and currently live in central Illinois, but I have usually lived in racially mixed neighborhoods in larger cities. I went to public schools and have had good experiences (and bad) with people of all races and backgrounds. This definitely colors (no pun intended) my experience of the world, in a good way, which is one of the points Loewen makes in this book--experience with a wide variety of people teaches you to take people as individuals and not make assumptions based on appearance.
Having read this book, when I drive through small-town Illinois on the way between my current home and my childhood home, I pay more attention to things I otherwise would have ignored. I am "white," but if I were "black," I probably would take the expressway instead of smaller highways through small towns, despite the longer travel time. Not that anything bad would necessarily happen, but I'd have just enough apprehension about it that I'd probably stick to a busier road. It gave me an appreciation of the kinds of considerations African American people have to make that I rarely think about. If I look at an apartment, for example, I assume I will get it if I can afford it. If I buy a house (assuming I am able to buy it), I don't worry that the neighbors will leave (or worse yet, try to get me to leave).
I have brought up some of the points in this book with acquaintances and at least once have been met with denial and astonishment, so much so that I had to check the book again to make sure I had my facts straight.
Many of the events in the book are based on oral history and census records, which means that there is room for error. But one person cannot do this work alone, and I commend Dr. Loewen for soliciting additional information at his website. When people are secretive and closed and don't want to admit something happened, of course it is going to be difficult to obtain accurate information. But Dr. Loewen has exhaustively documented sources for his material, and a good chunk of this book is the record of these sources.
This book is a tome. It took me a long time (months, off and on) to get through, but I kept picking it back up and plowing ahead. I found the last few chapters particularly interesting, and especially the point that sundown towns and former sundown towns have a negative effect on the people, particularly the children, who live in them (making them fearful and ill-equipped to deal with the larger world). And the reverse is true too--that integrated communities are desirable places to live simply because they are integrated (making their inhabitants less fearful and better equipped to deal with all kinds of people). I can personally attest to that.

"Sundown Towns" examines an underappreciated aspect of segregation and racism in the United States. The book provides a useful history of how the racial distribution of towns changed from the Civil War era to the present and how various measures were used to keep towns White or "Caucasian" (a category that was used to exclude a wide variety of peoples). I've lived in or near several towns given prominence in the book and have had family or friends who lived near other places. The book helped answer questions I had living in South Central Indiana in the '80s, where I was struck by the number or "all white" towns and the odd history of the sizable college town where I lived (Bloomington had no non-student African-American community "of record" until large industrial employers like GE came in the 1950s, an odd circumstance for a sizable town, with important commercial and government functions, as well as a major university). The book is particularly damning in its attention to racial segregation and repression in the North and West, although it is rather lacking in attention to the complexity of living arrangements in the South.

The author relies on local historical sources, archives, and oral histories. The oral histories seem to be the most inconsistent, which is recognized, but not fully appreciated. The variation in forces that led to the creation of sundown towns is appreciated but under analyzed. The author tends to jump from his main topic to broader considerations of segregation and this waters down some of the work. There are degrees to which towns really fit the "sundown" definition. Parma, Ohio had a small numbers of Black residents in the 1960s and would not fit in the same class as Cicero or Berwyn. He only touches briefly on the conflation of racism, the neo-feudal character of economies in the South (and many communities elsewhere, particularly small to medium sized towns), and the fear of potentially broad-based movements such as labor unions. Indeed, the importance of the CIO and the rise of industrial unions in the 1930s in bridging racial gaps is given a unthinkable lack of recognition. Efforts to improve civil rights and race relations did not occur in a linear or fully progressive fashion (just as disenfranchisement took place under differing curcumstances and proceeded at different rate in different places).

The book tends to get repetitious through its middle third and there aren't enough reference points to help us remember that Comanche County is in Texas and that the Glendale of interest is an inner ring suburb of Los Angeles. The book also is short on analysis--the author acknowledges variations in the roots of "sundown" sentiments, but doesn't really devote much depth to them. He also seems to have little understanding of the precarious sense of accomplishment and social standing experienced by "white ethnics" and the impact of this on urban race relations. The racism of central and southern Indiana fit well in a larger pattern of xenophobia that outstripped anything one would experience in nearby areas of other states. OTOH, the dynamics are far different in white ethnic suburbs like Warren or Cicero where a variety of factors (including a corrupt and powerful local machine, allied with organized crime in Cicero) set out a different set of dynamics.

The book ends on a rather hopeful note, although the analysis of changing racial attitudes lacks depth and seems to have a poverty of strong examples, although they are not difficult to find. Loewen keeps returning to the example of Mount Ranier, Maryland, a tiny, counterculturish suburb of Washington, DC, although there are numerous larger examples of racially integrated communities in DC and its suburbs. Short shrift is given to the efforts of places of like Shaker Heights and Oak Park, Illinois and the importance of economics at blunting block busting and other tactics that led to re-segregation of cities and suburbs. The irony of some "sundown towns" becoming prideful places of diversity like Oak Park or being colonized by non-Whites other than African Americans get mentioned only toward the end. This irony, as well as the succession of Hispanic ethnic groups in formerly African-American areas in South Central Los Angeles and elsewhere is worthy of further attention. As Loewen notes, racism isn't simply an epiphenomenon of economics or waves of migration, but one cannot consider it without looking at these bigger social dynamics.

The book's primary value is in documenting the institutionalization of racism and its widespread character in the United States, with attention to under apprciated issues such as racially-based lynching in the North. The book touches on experiences of the Chinese and Hispanics that parallel those of Blacks, but the depth is spotty and inconsistent. Much of this material would have worked better if it had been consolidated in a separate chapter highlighting commonalities and differences in the treatment of different "other" races.

Wow! This book does a great job of explaining how our villages and towns became so segregated. And until reading it I hadn't really realized how segregated we are.

Loewen starts the book by recapping how our country changed after the Civil War. I had heard of the migration north, but I didn't know that many of the newly-freed slaves actually had their own farms in the midwest. Racism slowly drove them off these farms and into groups in larger cities.

Loewen also explains how whites then responded by moving to suburbs and instituting measures to keep their new communities white. Some 80% of the Chicago suburbs had some type of codes that restricted certain races from settling there.

Loewen also made it clear that the sundown town practice was mainly a northern one. He did a lot of investigation of Illinois towns and found quite a few towns that had taken measures to prevent African Americans from settling or buying property within the town. He did also include examples of the practice existing on the East Coast to restrict Jewish people from WASP areas and on the West Coast to restrict Chinese or Asian immigrants from living outside their neighborhoods.

This book tells a fascinating story of our country and how segregation took hold. Read it!

So many American historians tell us what we want to hear. Prof. Loewen tells us what we very much *need* to hear. A sundown town, good reader, is a town that will allow a given race to pass through provided it gets out by sunset. _Sundown Towns_ is the story of how much of small-town America came to be all-white, or so nearly all-white as to make mock of diversity.

Growing up a white Westerner in mostly white towns, I always had the question about race relations: "Why the hell would such a high percentage of black people choose to live in nasty big cities? Why don't they move here? I won't hurt 'em. Their kids would get better educations and they'd do fine." It sounds so easy. Did any of you ever wonder that?

As Prof. Loewen documents with the greatest of care, after the Civil War that's what happened. And then, town by town, said black people were driven out and told never to return. The census figures combined with eyewitness accounts will admit of no other conclusion. Black people ended up concentrated in the only areas that were relatively safe to be black in. The American landscape was an immense minefield for them after 1890: can't stop here for gas, can't even pass through here, can't spend the night here. At some point you just go to Detroit, or wherever, and try and make do.

I live in Kennewick, Washington, which along with Richland (its sister city) was a sundown town until at least the mid-1960s. Every approach I make to delve into the topic is met with cold silence and deep disapproval. People don't return my phone calls, and I see fear in people's eyes. It is obvious that what I am seeing is a shame reaction, the hope that the last witnesses will die off before anyone records the truth. For many of us, _Sundown Towns_ is a family story.

Thank all the gods it's such a well-told one. Prof. Loewen is thorough and meticulous, but never dull. His style is interesting and accessible, never pretentious. He incorporates his own recollections but they do not dominate the narrative. But all the other great qualities of this essential book pale before that greatest one for the historian: it's convincing. This is an addition to our history. It has spurred me to discuss the matter with many people, of all races, and has helped me to understand that parts of the 'sundown town' concept are alive and well today. The moment you read it, your understanding will change--not in a namby-pamby do-gooder way, but in the way that comes from honest comprehension. In the same way _Guns, Germs and Steel_ provoked good dialogue and thought, so will _Sundown Towns_--the difference being that Prof. Loewen need not speculate. He has enough facts to state rather than surmise.

If this country gave out knighthoods, I'd raise hell until James Loewen got one. As it is, I can merely thank him for loving his country enough to tell it the truth.

I consider Sundown Towns to be a foundational work in my own education; I give it the highest recommendation possible. Looking at the cultural climate of the US today and trying to figure out how things have devolved to this chaotic, polarized state, Sundown Towns offers a clear history of racism, intolerance and segregation in the US. It's a challenging read on an emotional and intellectual level, but it worth reading and sharing.

This book is a fascinating, gut-wrenching read. The willingness of people to be so cruel to one another is startling. Many of the actions taken to exclude Blacks give the term "domestic terrorism" new meaning (Tulsa, I'm talking about you!) I only wish that I was more familiar with the areas of the Midwest that the author focused on. I'm sure there are many communities in California that didn't get mentioned that could have, if the author had grown up here.

Some people, particular those that may live in former (or even current) sundown towns, may suggest that we need to move on and not dwell on unpleasant subjects. Unfortunately, history is repeating itself as politicians and other opportunists try to demonize undocumented immigrants (particularly non-white immigrants). The town of Hazleton, Pennsylvania, has passed an exclusionary ordinance that smells a whole lot like the actions taken by sundown towns, except that it is targeting Hispanic people, some of who may be undocumented. Vigilante groups like the Minutemen are analogous to comparable groups, sometimes hooded, in the history of sundown towns.

First off, thank you to Professor Loewen for his painstaking research. Biased or not he backs up his information and makes you think as long as your mind is open and willing to absorb.

I'm an African-American, 37, grew up in a all-black neighborhood, but it wasn't always that way. I remember and have pictures of when I was 4 or 5, my next door neighbors were white and at least half of my block had white families. My brother and sister are 9 and 10 years older than me and they remember when the neighborhood was predominately white. They as well as I went to a Catholic school for grade school. They told me stories of racial slurs yelled towards them while walking together to school, but ten years later I never heard any. They had white classmates, I did not. At least not until I went to a different school starting in 5th grade, a predominately white school(about 95%). Believe me, I'll get to my point

While in this mostly black Catholic school I received all A's all the way up until 4th grade. In the 4th grade I received my first B. My father subsequently lost his mind and took me out of the school at the end of the year. He told me he was placing me in a mostly white private school. I really didn't think anything of it until I took the test for admission and barely passed. The admissions office told me I needed to attend summer school just to be admitted in the 5th grade or else I would have had to repeat 4th grade. WHAT THE !@#$. I got all A's, get 1 B in the 4th grade and I may have to repeat? Was this white suburban private school that much tougher than my black, city Catholic school? Well anyway I went to summer school and attended 5th grade but never got all A's ever again. It wasn't for lack of effort, it was because I never had the foundation for learning or skill set for that matter. I grew up in Philadelphia. The public school system has always been a mess. My father thought Catholic school was a step up. It was until he realized in order for me to have a chance I needed to be challenged and make connections.

These white kids parents had loot. Big houses, big cars, prestigious jobs etc. They mostly came from the suburbs, areas not to far from me but not areas where black folks lived. I never knew why until I grew up. I made friends quickly, even spent the night at their houses. I remember the odd looks I received in their neighborhoods from kids who had never seen a black face up close. No one ever called me any names but I did feel tension. One of my white friends even came to my neighborhood and spent the night. He never complained but I could tell he was a tad uncomfortable. Any way the value of schooling with the majority cannot be overstated. I learned how to deal with the upper class white majority something my neighborhood friends never did because they were not exposed.

Fast forward, today I own a DJ/Wedding business and 95% of my customers are white. I know some of my potential customers see color and would never hire a black DJ for a white wedding. then again some do not and hire me. I feel the stares at all my weddings when the crowd walks in, I'm dressed in a tux and people ask me where are their seats, like Im waiting on tables. I tell them I'm the DJ and I'm not sure where they're sitting and this blank stare lasts for about 3 seconds and they just walk away. It's funny but it's not. But by the end of the night it's all good.

I say all this because this book answers a ton of my own personal questions about race relations, things I've heard from family, things I've experienced and why things(neighborhoods) are the way they are. I have been very fortunate but most African-Americans have not been afforded the opportunities I have. Then again my post could have been entirely different had I grown up in an area that was not a racially tolerant as Philly, and Philly has it's own racial issues. I have no hatred of white folks, I was taught well. I would hope this book teaches and makes all races understand what we(Americans)are up against as a society. Open your minds.

Once again Jim Loewen applies his vast skills as a sociologist and historian to document the mostly silent history of "sundown towns" where people of color were either driven out or never allowed to become residents of many towns, most of which were located in the North.

Dr. Loewen's research is, as always, outstanding in its' accuracy and throughness, which is all the more difficult because this topic faces the problem of somewhat limited primary sources. The author relies on the written record, newspaper accounts, oral histories, and census date to bring this issue to light.

For anyone who feels that racial segregation occured naturally or by individual choice in this country, this book is essential.

It is another important work by Jim Loewen along with his previous books.

I found this book to be well worth reading. The editorial reviews accurately describe the contents. Many of the events documented by newspaper and photographs must be brought to our attention to remind us that patterns of settlement don't just happen. I must, however, admit to a certain queasiness about some of the "factual" material. Although Mr. Loewen acknowledges that there is a dearth of written material about sundown towns, he does not finally hesitate to designate a town as such based solely upon census records showing either no African Americans or a declining number of African Americans. Additionally, I have some doubts about the accuracy of the quoted memories about the town in which I grew up and spent many years. The "fact" that police met trains to warn away unwary black people stikes me as highly unlikely, to say the least. I think that it is always wise to be skeptical about otherwise undocumented recollections.

SUNDOWN TOWNS is a powerful, compelling, and deeply disturbing exploration of the dynamics of racism in the USA. I have been a diversity trainer and consultant for more than 30 years, and I only knew an infinitesimal fraction of the appalling story of the "ethnic cleansing" that took place in this country between 1890 and 1930. The legacy of Sundown Towns lives and breathes with us every day and in every way. Until we acknowledge this grim and ugly past, we cannot hope to overcome the vast racial divide that exists in the USA. Loewen's research and analysis are a profound wake-up call for all Americans, whether they are black, white, Latino, or Asian-American. It deserves your attention!

Bob Abramms, [...] Amherst MA

On one hand, this is a frequently overlooked and utterly important piece of American history. Unfortunately, I didn't find James Loewen's style of writing to be in sync with they way I best absorb information. It was dry and dull at times, causing me to lose focus on the book despite being interested in the subject.

Long story short: I wanted to like this read, but truth be told, making it all the way through was tedious at best.

After the first one hundred pages, I was ready to give this five stars. I have lived or worked in most of the towns mentioned in Southern Illinois, and the book correctly presents a great deal of information. On the other hand, some of the oral histories were quite incorrect. Eldorado has not had a "sundown sign" since 1960 at least, if ever. But the author claims it had such a sign into the 1980's. The mayor of Benton, Illinois remarks were taken out of context and totally misrepresented her, and her comments. These errors and several similar ones could have easily been avoided, making the book much better. The tragedy is that his points are well made and accurate generally, but when errors creep in it allows those who are racist in their attitudes to mount a defense that the book is filled with inaccuracies. If this were the only problem, I would still give the book four and one half to five stars.
The greatest problem with this book is when the author allows his own political views to overshadow reality in assuming that race was the motivation for many southern whites to vote Republican for the past forty years. Saline County (Eldorado, IL), Franklin County (Benton, West Frankfort and Ziegler, IL) and Union County (Anna, IL) are some of the most racist communities in the United States. Yet, these communities rarely even have Republican candidates on the ballot for local elections. The Democrat Party reigns supreme in these communities. Party affiliation is not reflective of racist attitudes. This is the great blemish on what could have been a truly great book. It does shine light on a horrible problem. It is a common reality throughout the United States. Much of the analysis is excellent. But the author's personal biases tarnished the final product.

SCARY, HARD TO BELIEVE THIS IS STILL GOING ON IN THIS COUNTRY. THOUGHT JIM CROW DIED MANY YEARS AGO GUESS I WAS WRONG MUST BE LIVING A SHELTERED LIFE. AFTER READING THIS BOOK I THINK I MIGHT JUST NEED TO STAY IN MY SHELTER.

We recently had Dr. Loewen as a guest for an online meeting of the Everyday Democracy Book Club. It was interesting to hear whether he feels his book has made much of a difference (he doesn't, yet) and what needs to happen to overcome the legacy of Sundown Towns. Here's his prescription and a link to the conversation.
[...]

I made it about 150 pages into the book before I felt like I had to give up. It's a great premise and an interesting topic. Unfortunately the discussion contained within the book seems like it is geared towards proving the assumptions of the author rather than generating any credible discussion of the subject.

The main issues I found:
1) A large portion of the book is based on hearsay. There is little evidence or research to back up the personal anecdotes.
2) The book paints a broad brush of all the locales described. It seems unfair to argue against stereotyping African Americans, when you do the same to every white person based on their geographic location.
3) As other reviewers have noted Mr. Loewen extends sundown towns to any town which is entirely white. This is a huge leap in logic.
4) There is a lengthy section discussing statistics to try and prove a large number of Illinois towns were sundown regardless of their being any proof or not. The entire section reads like smoke and mirrors to try and make the leap to support the arguments within the book. It is also based on 145 out of 146 towns Mr. Loewen found direct evidence for as being sundown towns and then extending that ratio to another 700 or so towns. Did the thought ever occur that maybe those 145 towns were documented because they were extraordinary and someone though it prudent to do so?

I am African American and I grew up in one of the towns in the northeast mentioned in the book (I didn't read the book, my sister told me about it, she said it was very good so that's where my rating comes from.) This town was EXTREMELY RACIST. My siblings and I were the only African American kids in the local school and we went through hell. We were called "nigger" so many times that we lost count. I heard that this town "opened up" in the 1980's, but I still cannot bring myself to go back there.

Nevertheless, I don't hate white people or anyone else for that matter. I try to judge people as individuals, and have raised my children to do the same. In fact, I feel sorry for the people who were so hateful to us. What kind of person gets pleasure or satisfaction from inflicting pain on others?

I live in a large city that has its share of racial problems. However, I live in a very nice, integrated neighborhood. There are blacks, Asians, and Latinos. Many of the residents (including myself) are city workers. I have to admit that I would have not moved there if there were no other people of color there. At the risk of contradicting myself, I just would not feel comfortable being the only black person in an all-white neighborhood. Been there, done that, and it wasn't fun.

I just can't bring myself to read this book, though, because it would bring back too many painful memories.

This book draws a perfect circle around anyone who could possibly disagree with its poorly researched premise. Undated, often unnamed anecdotal quotes do not represent a "methodology." Nor does stating a particular location had a "covenant" in one housing development against minorities and FAILING TO REPORT THIS COVENANT WAS MADE ILLEGAL IN 1948. It took me less than two minutes on the Internet to find this out, so am assuming our esteemed professor had access to that information. I checked this one out very carefully, and because I was raised in that town in an extraordinarily tolerant environment, I was stunned and shocked at his accusation. Again, it turned out to be true for a very small amount of time, for one development in one small place, and then was made illegal.

All Americans who did not know they lived in a sundown town are exactly like the "good Germans" who really did see and did nothing about the Nazis. This literally made me sick, when I think of long and sustained efforts of so many people to relate to, understand, invite in, and preach tolerance for all minorities including numerous hands-on actions and strong efforts toward education. The author states he is not comparing whites who "didn't know" they lived in "sundown towns" to Nazis, and then he does exactly that.

Anyone who disagrees with all this is uninformed or racist or both. Heads of historical societies that cannot document that a particular town is "sundown" are labeled "unprofessional." The statement is made that most often they "laugh" at the idea that theirs was a sundown town. I have known several heads of historical societies and they would never laugh at this idea; conversely, they would do whatever possible to make a serious determination. Certainly some historical societies have washed their sins away and removed documentation. But to conclude such a wholesale effort among all the thousands of now-labeled towns in the United States is that widespread is preposterous. To read and accept this book as fact is to believe in massive conspiracy on a national level with no redeeming efforts to combat it.

Point a finger and two point back. Heads of historical societies cannot document sundown towns, but neither can this author. His web site asks you to write in and point the finger at your town. Send more unnamed, undated "messages.

The real definition of a sundown town, one that prevented blacks from remaining in the town after dark, has been expanded by the author, to suit his purpose, to include any town that is predominately white. No other circumstances are generally considered by the author for such a demarcation. Should we then use his logic to conclude that because a neighborhood is black, whites are driven out by threat of lynching, beating, or burning crosses on the lawn?

Sorry, this book will not pass the simplest test of a newspaper reporter documenting a simple story. It is full of heresy, innuendo, and plain lack of documentation. I find it absolutely appalling that so many many towns are painted with one brush, that of racism. Isn't that the essence of what
racism does to minorities, paint them all with one brush as if they had no differentiating characteristics?

It is a blatant appeal to white guilt. We have much to be guilty about and many retributions to make, but labeling whole communities racist and those who try to document the past "unprofessional" (or worse) for disagreeing with this author are not solutions. They become part of the problem, minimizing individual responsibility and obscuring the full truth of history.

This book is the emperor's new clothes to anyone who believes all that is contained in it. It would be refreshing to see a book that fairly reports what many individuals and groups, unsung and never famous, did to work actively, long, and hard, against the racism of some in their communities, working together with minorities to make a better world. No, that is not my rose-colored vision. It really happened in my town, my church, and at the newspaper where I worked and, by the way, had to document my stories with hard facts or not write them at all.

Very disappointed in this book. "Sundown towns" no doubt existed in various places at various times, but this book does nothing much to document them. It is largely just an anti-Republican polemic making dubious and UNVERIFIED claims with ludicrously transparent political motivations. Moreover, the author does not at any point even ASK why white attitudes toward black people changed in the generation after the Civil War, which is one of the most pertinent questions of all.

It is painfully evident from the statistics gathered here that the author is a fanatic whose mission in life is to gather every possible scrap of real or pseudo evidence to defame and demonize his own race. Yes, this happened. I grew up in the segregated South and know all about that side of it. However, there is a certain type of White person, of which the author is certainly an example, who seems to loathe his own people to a degree hardly credible, if it were not for the evidence of his behavior. The idea that White people simply do not have a right to be left alone to live by themselves as they see fit, is an idea that insinuates that it is inherently wrong to be White. If a group of black people were to build an all-black town and surround it with signs saying "Whitey, you better be out of here by sundown," I suspect that the author wouldn't object to it.

This history needs to be known. I grew up in a town in Illinois which was highly prejudiced; though there were no signs, everyone knew African-Americans stayed south of the railroad tracks after dark. I began reading about towns I'm familiar with. And I was shocked! There is little to no actual research involved at all! The author simply takes some unidentified person's comment and reports it as fact! I checked a number of towns, both those known to me and those unknown, and the majority of them were treated in the same way! "Someone said..." No respected historian would give a moment's credibility to this author! And that is a shame. There have been "Sundown Towns," but now most readers will shrug off such things because this "authority" is so obviously unreliable. Yes, this history needs to be known, but this author has blown it big time!

I got a copy of Sundown Towns, after a guy that I occasionally walk with in the early morning told me about the book. When I went to check the book out, I discussed it in part with the library clerk and another woman. The clerk stated our small town was mentioned in Sundown Towns, and thought the book had been incorrectly researched. Since I'm one of those people that still believe non-fiction should be told as correctly (and truthfully) as possible, I immediately started reading.

First page, Chapter One, had me wondering right off the bat. Having read Professor Loewen's credentials, I must say I was a bit disappointed. And if he relied only on information he obtained from a convenience store clerk, then he and I haven't gotten off on the right foot. In order not to confuse anyone that might happen to read this review, let me quote Loewen's conversation with the clerk:

Is it true that `ANNA' stands for `Ain't No Niggers Allowed?" I asked at the

convenience store in Anna, Illinois, where I had stopped to buy coffee.

"Yes," the clerk replied. "That's sad, isn't it," she added, distancing

herself from the policy. And she went on to assure me, "That all happened

a long time ago."

"I understand [racial exclusion] is still going on?" I asked.

"Yes," she replied. "That's sad."

NOW, from the HISTORY of ALEXANDER, UNION AND PULASKI COUNTIES, ILLINOIS on page 371-72 of Part II, Chapter XIV, clearly states how Anna, Illinois came to be named ANNA, which reads:

During the year of 1853, Winstead Davie, who then owned the most of the land which is now the site of the city of Anna, and Col. Lewis W. Ashley, Division Engineer, who had come into possession of a portion of the same tract, determined to lay out a town at this point. The proper surveys were made by Francis H. Brown, the County Surveyor, and lots were laid out on both sides of Main Street and the railroad. Mr. Davie decided to name the town in honor of his beloved wife, ANNA, and under this name, the plat was entered upon the county records on March 3, 1854.

To include such a statement that Loewen used to begin his non-fiction book, I would have definitely sought a more reliable source of information than a convenience store clerk, who may or may not have known the correct answer to his question in the first place, but didn't want to appear stupid, especially if he had bothered to introduce himself.

And that's enough said about this part of Sundown Towns.

I then went to the book's index and looked up the small town where I live. I turned to page 187 and there it was, in black and white. Loewen writes that "according to Robyn Williams, a nearby teacher, Eldorado sported a sundown sign until the 1980s. (Unfamiliar with the term `nearby teacher', I assume a NEARBY teacher is one that does not teach in Eldorado, but in a NEARBY town).

Again, I discussed this statement with other life-long residents, and to the best of everyone's recollection, no such `sundown town' sign existed in the 50s, 60s, 70s, or 80s. I was, however, told by my mother (another life-long resident) that once upon a time, such a sign was displayed on the edge of Eldorado. When it was removed, I cannot say for sure. But certainly, it was not sported until the 1980s, as Loewen has written, or a nearby teacher stated.

Eldorado is a small, close knit town, where very little happens that goes unnoticed. I won't dispute Loewen's next statement about a white couple adopting a biracial child, and then had raw sewage thrown on their lawn, and other problems that caused them to leave town shortly thereafter. BUT, I've never heard that story before either. There is a couple that adopted two African American children a long time ago. They still live in Eldorado, the children attended the local schools for twelve years, and to my knowledge they were never mistreated.

If Loewen is intent on writing about how the white man has, over the years, mistreated those of a different color and ethnicity, then perhaps he should rely more on the history books that have already been written, instead of consulting convenience store clerks and nearby teachers, who are probably either too young to know, too far removed, or else too ignorant of the facts to comment one way or the other. But no matter what he writes, and God knows he must have spent a great deal of time putting this book together, he should be more certain of the facts. There's enough racial dissension in the world today without authors like Loewen writing books that could possibly create more. This type of writing makes southern Illinois look bad enough, but for someone who has never lived here and isn't familiar with the area, to write incorrectly about it, then I guess that really bothers me. No doubt, my sentiments show in this review. History has painted a very unfavorable picture of the white man's treatment of African Americans and other minority groups, and it is quite sad. But what, if anything, can we hope to gain if we continue to "pour salt in the wounds", expressing that this very situation still exists today. Then again, there was a Hurricane Katrina.

This history needs to be known. I grew up in a town in Illinois which was highly prejudiced; though there were no signs, everyone knew African-Americans stayed south of the railroad tracks after dark. I began reading about towns I'm familiar with. And I was shocked! There is little to no actual research involved at all! The author simply takes some unidentified person's comment and reports it as fact! I checked a number of towns, both those known to me and those unknown, and the majority of them were treated in the same way! "Someone said..." No respected historian would give a moment's credibility to this author! And that is a shame. There have been "Sundown Towns," but now most readers will shrug off such things because this "authority" is so obviously unreliable. Yes, this history needs to be known, but this author has blown it big time!

I got a copy of Sundown Towns, after a guy that I occasionally walk with in the early morning told me about the book. When I went to check the book out, I discussed it in part with the library clerk and another woman. The clerk stated our small town was mentioned in Sundown Towns, and thought the book had been incorrectly researched. Since I'm one of those people that still believe non-fiction should be told as correctly (and truthfully) as possible, I immediately started reading.

First page, Chapter One, had me wondering right off the bat. Having read Professor Loewen's credentials, I must say I was a bit disappointed. And if he relied only on information he obtained from a convenience store clerk, then he and I haven't gotten off on the right foot. In order not to confuse anyone that might happen to read this review, let me quote Loewen's conversation with the clerk:

Is it true that `ANNA' stands for `Ain't No Niggers Allowed?" I asked at the

convenience store in Anna, Illinois, where I had stopped to buy coffee.

"Yes," the clerk replied. "That's sad, isn't it," she added, distancing

herself from the policy. And she went on to assure me, "That all happened

a long time ago."

"I understand [racial exclusion] is still going on?" I asked.

"Yes," she replied. "That's sad."

NOW, from the HISTORY of ALEXANDER, UNION AND PULASKI COUNTIES, ILLINOIS on page 371-72 of Part II, Chapter XIV, clearly states how Anna, Illinois came to be named ANNA, which reads:

During the year of 1853, Winstead Davie, who then owned the most of the land which is now the site of the city of Anna, and Col. Lewis W. Ashley, Division Engineer, who had come into possession of a portion of the same tract, determined to lay out a town at this point. The proper surveys were made by Francis H. Brown, the County Surveyor, and lots were laid out on both sides of Main Street and the railroad. Mr. Davie decided to name the town in honor of his beloved wife, ANNA, and under this name, the plat was entered upon the county records on March 3, 1854.

To include such a statement that Loewen used to begin his non-fiction book, I would have definitely sought a more reliable source of information than a convenience store clerk, who may or may not have known the correct answer to his question in the first place, but didn't want to appear stupid, especially if he had bothered to introduce himself.

And that's enough said about this part of Sundown Towns.

I then went to the book's index and looked up the small town where I live. I turned to page 187 and there it was, in black and white. Loewen writes that "according to Robyn Williams, a nearby teacher, Eldorado sported a sundown sign until the 1980s. (Unfamiliar with the term `nearby teacher', I assume a NEARBY teacher is one that does not teach in Eldorado, but in a NEARBY town).

Again, I discussed this statement with other life-long residents, and to the best of everyone's recollection, no such `sundown town' sign existed in the 50s, 60s, 70s, or 80s. I was, however, told by my mother (another life-long resident) that once upon a time, such a sign was displayed on the edge of Eldorado. When it was removed, I cannot say for sure. But certainly, it was not sported until the 1980s, as Loewen has written, or a nearby teacher stated.

Eldorado is a small, close knit town, where very little happens that goes unnoticed. I won't dispute Loewen's next statement about a white couple adopting a biracial child, and then had raw sewage thrown on their lawn, and other problems that caused them to leave town shortly thereafter. BUT, I've never heard that story before either. There is a couple that adopted two African American children a long time ago. They still live in Eldorado, the children attended the local schools for twelve years, and to my knowledge they were never mistreated.

If Loewen is intent on writing about how the white man has, over the years, mistreated those of a different color and ethnicity, then perhaps he should rely more on the history books that have already been written, instead of consulting convenience store clerks and nearby teachers, who are probably either too young to know, too far removed, or else too ignorant of the facts to comment one way or the other. But no matter what he writes, and God knows he must have spent a great deal of time putting this book together, he should be more certain of the facts. There's enough racial dissension in the world today without authors like Loewen writing books that could possibly create more. This type of writing makes southern Illinois look bad enough, but for someone who has never lived here and isn't familiar with the area, to write incorrectly about it, then I guess that really bothers me. No doubt, my sentiments show in this review. History has painted a very unfavorable picture of the white man's treatment of African Americans and other minority groups, and it is quite sad. But what, if anything, can we hope to gain if we continue to "pour salt in the wounds", expressing that this very situation still exists today. Then again, there was a Hurricane Katrina.

In the same spirit as the Soviet Union's major newspaper was called Pravda - meaning "truth" - Loewen gives the reader a non-stop parade of lies, badly-written propaganda and half-truths. Not only that, but he manages to bore the reader to death at the same time with his terrible, incompetent writing! This deserves zero stars and only crack-smoking communists...er, "progressives" would read such tripe. If you have a bird cage, you can use the pages to line the bottom so at least we didn't kill the trees for nothing.

It seems like he took every other scholars work and wrapped it up in a book. It would have been better if he gave the reader so first hand knowledge. The author seemed to want to be the story. Wasted my money on this book, it sucked.