Sundown Town | Siren Sounds for Minorities to Get Out of Town Track

Sundown Towns were all-white communities, neighborhoods, or counties that excluded Blacks and other minorities through the use of discriminatory laws, harassment, and threats or use of violence. Sundown Towns used sirens to notify people of color when they had a half hour to leave the all-white USA town.

During the Jim Crow era, roughly around the 1860s following the ratification of the 13th Amendment (ending slavery), cities and states passed laws legalizing racial segregation.

If you were not white or couldn’t pass for white, certain rights didn’t include you. Every part of your life was dictated by these laws. Where you used the bathroom, sat in a theater, ate at a restaurant, sat on a bus, the school you attended, what part of town you lived in… all of it depended on the color of your skin.

Fast forward to the early 1900s, when many people of color began leaving the South and moving west because of racism, poverty, and overall abuse. White people didn’t mind people of color leaving the south as long as they didn’t settle down in their town. To preserve their all-white communities they began posting various warning signs at city limits.

Sundown Towns allowed people of color to work and travel through the communities during the daytime, but once the sun set, it was best that they weren't caught within city limits. Those that were still within city limits were subject to beatings, jail time, and even death.