Channel: The Film Archives

Category: Education

Description: Read the book: amazon.com/gp/search?ie=UTF8&tag=tra0c7-20&linkCode=ur2&linkId=72cf442f293aa9c43f5d1803934cd95a&camp=1789&creative=9325&index=books&keywords=sundown%20towns%20hidden Sundown towns, also known as sunset towns, gray towns, or sundowner towns, are all-white municipalities or neighborhoods in the United States that practice a form of racial segregation by excluding non-whites via some combination of discriminatory local laws, intimidation or violence. The term came from signs posted that "colored people" had to leave town by sundown. Entire sundown counties and sundown suburbs were also created by the same process. The practice was not restricted to the southern states, with New Jersey and other northern states being described as equally inhospitable to black travelers until at least the early 1960s. Discriminatory policies and actions distinguish sundown towns from towns that have no black residents for demographic reasons. Historically, towns have been confirmed as sundown towns by newspaper articles, county histories, and Works Progress Administration files, corroborated by tax or U.S. Census records showing an absence of black people or sharp drop in the black population between two censuses. Gentleman's Agreement (1947), is known as "the only feature film [of its era] to treat sundown towns seriously."  However, it dealt with a town that excluded Jewish people rather than black people. "The anti-Nazi ideology opened more sundown suburbs to Jews than to African Americans... Gentleman's Agreement, Elia Kazan's 1948 Academy Award-winning movie [exposed] Darien, Connecticut, as an anti-Jewish sundown town." The Fugitive Kind (1959), a film directed by Sidney Lumet and starring Marlon Brando and Anna Magnani, mentions sundown towns. A Southern sheriff tells Brando's character about a sign in the small town that reads, "Nigger, don't let the sun go down on you in this county." The same sign is shown in Tennessee Williams's play Orpheus Descending, upon which the film is based. In her memoir I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), poet Maya Angelou describes Mississippi as inhospitable to African Americans after dark: "Don't let the sun set on you here nigger, Mississippi." Oprah Winfrey visited Forsyth County, Georgia, on a 1987 episode of her television show. At the beginning of the 20th century, the county was known for its expulsion of African Americans. Trouble Behind (1991), a documentary by Robby Henson, examines the history and legacy of racism in Corbin, Kentucky, a small railroad community noteworthy both as the home of Colonel Sanders' Kentucky Fried Chicken and for "its race riots of 1919, during which over two hundred blacks were loaded onto boxcars and shipped out of town." The film aired at the 1991 Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize. No Niggers, No Jews, No Dogs (2000), a play by John Henry Redwood. Banished: How Whites Drove Blacks Out of Town in America (2006), a documentary by Marco Williams which was inspired by Elliot Jaspin's book Buried in the Bitter Waters: The Hidden History of Racial Cleansing in America (2007). Sundown Town (2011), a play by Kevin D. Cohea. The Injustice Files: Sundown Towns (February 24, 2014), an Investigation Discovery documentary by filmmaker Keith Beauchamp, executive produced by Al Roker. The 2016 video game Mafia III released a downloadable content story pack titled Faster, Baby, which sees African-American protagonist Lincoln Clay assist a black rights activist group in taking down a sheriff enforcing a sundown policy in a small Louisiana parish. Green Book (2018), the Academy Award winner for Best Picture, is a comedy drama about a tour of the Deep South in the 1960s by African American classical and jazz pianist Don Shirley (Mahershala Ali), who is arrested in a Southern town for being out after sundown. 2018 documentary Man on Fire about the 2014 self-immolation of anti-racist social justice pastor Charles Moore in Grand Saline, Texas, who was native to the town. Lovecraft Country (2020) (TV series based on the 2016 book written by Matt Ruff). Atticus Freeman joins up with his friend Letitia and his Uncle George to embark on a road trip across 1950s Jim Crow America in search of his missing father. In the first episode of the first season the trio is pulled over by a police officer who informs them they are in a "sundown county" and then threatens to lynch them unless they can leave the county before sundown. American rapper Vince Staples raps about the subject in the song "Sundown Town" on his self titled album. In 2019, sociologist Heather O'Connell wrote that sundown towns are "(primarily) a thing of the past", but writer Morgan Jerkins disagreed, saying: "Sundown towns have never gone away." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundown_town