however winx... what is on the list for oregon?

One of the towns I lived in Princess Anne MD is on the list. I do know that there was a lynching there in the late 50's or early 60's, they wanted to use my great Aunts tree & she ran them off. She didn't save the poor man, but they didn't kill him in her yard. Her house is now the home of the local historical society.

As recently as 20 years ago they were still trying to prevent blacks from voting. They were actually telling people you had to be a property owner to vote.

Princess Anne is home to UMES, the traditionally black campus of the University of Md. During the 60's there were race riots there, Police with fire hoses & dogs, like you have seen on the footage from Selma. I remember seeing this on the local news.I was born & raised 15 miles north of Princess Anne. I also remember adults around me saying things like "this is city niggers doing this, our local ones are good niggers & don't cause trouble" My family was very racist.

I raised my daughter here, & we lived in a mixed neighborhood & personally never had any problems. I was a renter & didn't have a problem voting, but I don't doubt that black renters were told that they couldn't. I remember that mess very well.

I never heard of term "Sundown town" but knowing the history of the area I am not surprised.

General
Ashland
Astoria
Coos Bay
Dallas
Eugene
Florence
Grants Pass
Jacksonville
La Grande
Lake Oswego
Lebanon
McMinnville
Medford
Milton
Monroe
Oakridge
Oregon City
Pendleton
Roseburg
Salem
Springfield
The Dalles
Tillamook
Toledo

Wow, I can't imagine that happening in my yard like it happened to your Aunt.

ahhhh ha! the town dallas! i knew it! thats where i moved when i was 16! so it was 1979! there were no signs, but not one black.. and the way people talked there and they would even run people of a different race outta town to the next one!<independance> i remember clearly a few people telling me that they dont belong here! thank gawd i only lived there 2 yrs!

i live in oregon city now and have for 3 yrs and been coming here since 2003 quite often.. <my ex bf lives here> and i have seen 1 black person here in all that time ! he worked at the mcdonalds window...unreal lots of mexican people here though...

I just googled this & I was wrong on the date. It was 1933. OK I was told 50 years ago, but I guess I did 1st hear the story in the 80's. I always heard the last lyching in the state was in Dorchester Co in the 70's, but I can't find any documentation. This is the county where Harriet Tubman was born.

http://www.mdcivilrights.org/Lynching.html

Thanks for the great thread Winx.

Know your history...or be doomed to repeat it right?

Keep in mind...this is pretty recent history too.

I dunno if they still do, but Vidor, Texas used to have a sign at the city limits that said "If you back is black don't let the sun set on it in this town"

from wikepedia

espite African Americans comprising one-fourth of the population of the Beaumont-Port Arthur metropolitan area, as of the 2000 Census, Vidor had only eight African-American residents. Vidor was considered a sundown town in the 1950s, and even though improvements have been made since those decades, racism remains a problem much like the rest of the south.[4]

Vidor was the subject of many national news stories throughout the early 1990s during the attempts of the Department of Housing and Urban Development to desegregate the local housing project. The federal government had found the state of Texas to have 32 counties with segregated housing projects and had issued an order to begin desegregating them. Vidor was chosen to be one of the first to be desegregated, despite the very low black population in the city. A Ku Klux Klan rally in 1993 contributed to sparking controversy and dissuading African-American families from remaining in Vidor.[4] Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Rick Bragg wrote a story about Vidor entitled, "Racism Wins in a Small Town in Texas." The story ran in the August 15, 1993 edition of the St. Petersburg Times and is anthologized in Bragg's book, "Somebody Told Me."

I'm gonna back-up Buttons and say that the Seattle I've always known is all about diversity (I've only been to Federal Way for Wild Waves), but it sounds like this was prevailant before I was old enough to be aware of it.

My home town did not make the list, but it is very small. I wouldn't doubt that it was a sundown town in the past; there are still very few people who are not white who live there.

Thanks, Lynann.

Wow!

I don't recall ever hearing about them before.

Here are a few more that didn't make the list yet as to living in those towns I know the law did exist or it was enforced either way
Valsetz.
Detroit Lake
Idana
These were timber towns.

I remember Valsetz when the first mexican moved in we had never had anyone but white and 1 native american family live there. Not counting the men that lived in the bunkhouses but they never associated with the town folk.
I also remember a town in OK that had that law. I guess that is where I first heard of it. I was shocked.. I don't think we are white people can truely understand how appalling others were treated. I now have the united nations in my family so to speak and when I hear the elders talk I am ashamed of the actions of the past.

I can't believe things like this are still going on.

There are several small towns where I live that are all white but I dont think its because of any laws or anything like that.That just happens to be the way it is. Its pretty stupid that people still get away with this crap.

I was surprised too!

East St. Louis, IL is 97% black. It wasn't that way in the early 1900's. It's a black city because the town next to it had the Sundown Law.

This is a good read. It comes from the book written by the sociologist, James W. Loewen. It explains Sundown Towns and the history.

http://www.uvm.edu/~jloewen/content/sundown-introduction.pdf