A review by vasha
Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism by James W. Loewen

challenging informative reflective sad slow-paced

4.5

 James Loewen's incisively-written, thoroughly argued book Sundown Towns documents the vast extent of racist exclusion in the United States, as during the "nadir" of race relations in the country (1890-1940) towns and counties drove out their Black population and kept them out (often violently), and new suburbs were founded with explicitly exclusionist policies.  Loewen argues persuasively that whenever a community is all-white, or nearly, that's intentional (he investigated a sampling of historically all-white communities, mostly in Illinois, and was able to find documentation of their policies in more than 98% of cases; he believes that at least 70 percent of Illinois was intentionally off-limit to Blacks at the peak of the sundown town movement).  When he wrote the book, in 2005, the history of non-southern segregation was little known, and it still isn't as well known as it should be.  Since the civil rights movement, whites have learned to deny that they're racist, but not necessarily to change their racist behavior.  And there is still a belief that the continuing segregated pattern of residence in the US is somehow natural, that Black families for some reason want to live in cities rather than the country or the suburbs; and there is a belief that it is natural for whites to want to move out of areas that are becoming integrated, for reasons that Loewen very clearly analyzes.  This whole situation has had a devastating effect on US society, and continues to increase racism in the minds of whites in segregated communities since they never encounter blacks as neighbors and social equals.

This book has the rare quality of being quotable: I marked over a dozen striking passages. And it's still important.  The one part that's lacking is the last two chapters.  "Sundown Towns Today" needs updating; at least Loewen was honest in 2005 that he wasn't certain where social trends were heading.  "The Remedy" discusses community, legal, and political means of countering residential segregation.  Yet I'm not sure how many of his proposals are realistic at all, particularly in today's developing social and political climate.  And many parts of this chapter allow the far-too-simplistic assumption that, given that white flight is bad for neighborhoods, the effect of whites moving into mostly-nonwhite neighborhoods can only be good.  Loewen leaves a huge hole in his arguments by barely discussing gentrification at all, and not thinking of it as a harmful factor, leaving him unable to seriously consider the interaction of racism and gentrification.
Expand filter menu Content Warnings