ROANOKE, Va. (WDBJ) – Black History Month is a time to celebrate the accomplishments and contributions Black Americans have made to society, but some parts of the fight for equality can be uncomfortable to remember. WDBJ7 spoke with experts about the history of sundown towns in America.
Historians say sundown towns are cities or towns that intentionally kept people of color, specifically Black Americans, out of their towns after sundown. There are several documented in our region. WDBJ7 spoke with a history professor to learn more about these communities and their impact.
“Sundown Towns are spaces of psychological safety for the white permanent underclass, and the working class, and the middle class, and the elite. So it transcends class. It transcends education attainment. It transcends religion,” said Radford University African American Studies director Frederick Douglas Dixon.
Dixon said Sundown towns emerged in the late 1800s after the end of the Civil War and slavery.
“The sundown town in itself is, it’s the symptom. Like the space in itself is a space that represents a mindset.” He said they’re centered around this question, “What should be done with the presence of a troublesome Negro for maximum exploitation?”
Dixon said they began as a way to promote the white race and prevent newly-freed slaves from achieving success.
“You think of sundown towns becoming popular after the end of the Civil War, so after 1865. Not that they didn’t exist, but they become part of a larger narrative of slavery by another name, after the Emancipation Proclamation. And one way to look at it is white massive resistance,” he said.
Sundown towns would usually emerge after a Black person was accused of a crime, leading the white population to place blame on the entire Black community and force them out, mainly through lynchings and arson.
“It’s representative of a power dynamic. And inside that power dynamic, the expectations are very violent. So a sundown town has its expectations. ‘If you’re here after a certain time, your life is not only in danger; your life can be taken.’ And lynching, a lot of times, was the medium. If not burning, if not shooting, if not stabbing,” he added.
Dixon said these communities used legal and violent means to keep their populations mostly white.
“It’s systemic. It’s institutional. It allows for a change in the life of the permanent white underclass. But not that same for even the Black middle class.”
He said the Jim Crow Era saw ordinances excluding Black people from property ownership or limiting what public services they had.
“The problem was that Blacks had become landowners. That’s the power dynamic,” said Dixon. “We’re really talking about generational wealth. And its inability to be passed along.”
Dixon said it’s important to recognize the significance of Sundown Towns because if we don’t acknowledge the root of how they began, they are bound to grow.
“Number one problematic issue is anti-Blackness. And it will continue,” he closed.
Dixon said while many of the racist practices are illegal in 2025, the culture of Sundown Towns still exists.
According to historians, there are over a dozen documented Sundown Towns in the commonwealth. For more information on sundown towns, visit History of Sundown Towns.
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