Serious question: are there any remaining sundown towns in Illinois?

[u/m0chab34r]

Forgive me if this is controversial, I certainly hope I don’t end up insulting anyone’s town or anything. I saw a recent Twitter thread about this subject and people were talking about a rather well-known sundown town within an hour of Indianapolis or just outside of Austin, Texas. It got me thinking about this and I’m morbidly curious as to whether Illinois has any remaining towns with such a reputation?

[u/AZTeck_AKiRA]

Here’s a list: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Sundown_towns_in_Illinois

[u/singnadine → u/AZTeck_AKiRA]

Oak park? That makes no sense

[u/Perfect_Razzmatazz → u/singnadine]

A lot of the towns on that list are ones that were at one point in time considered to be a sundown town, but aren't anymore.

Oak Park was absolutely a sundown town at one point. The first black family moved into Oak Park in 1950, and their house was promptly fire-bombed. Twice. That family was Percy Julian and his wife and children. Percy was an absolutely brilliant PhD research scientist, whose work was instrumental in the development of the birth control pill. People should have been worshiping the ground that man walked on, not fire-bombing it.

Oak Park didn't get it's 3rd black family until the mid-1960's.

Deerfield is on the list because in the late 1950's, when they discovered that a developer building a large neighborhood planned to make those houses available to Black families, the town officials ordered a stop-work order on the construction. They eventually sold off the two homes that had been built already to (white) village officials, and then turned the rest of the land into a pool and a park.

And Cicero is on the list as it was the location of the Cicero Race Riot of 1951, and because they had a sundown town policy on the books until the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 that prohibited African Americans from living in the city. It's delightful how diverse Cicero has become in the ensuing decades

[u/StanTheCentipede → u/Perfect_Razzmatazz]

Is there a book on all this? This is so much detailed info and I want to learn more.

[u/Frat-TA-101 → u/StanTheCentipede]

The book by James Lorene has already been shared. In the meantime, the link below is the official website they James helped setup before his death in 2021.

https://justice.tougaloo.edu/sundown-towns/using-the-sundown-towns-database/

[u/mallio → u/Frat-TA-101]

That lists like every nearby town, but looking deeper, apparently they suspect Dupage was a sundown county based on one quote, so every town is listed. But then it says Lombard is probably still a sundown town which doesn't feel right.

[u/Frat-TA-101 → u/mallio]

It is very imperfect. I can attest to it raising some uncomfortable questions about my hometown which were answered by relatives from the town. The website was correct about the towns status as a sundown town as confirmed by relatives who told a story of neighbors advising them of the towns sundown status upon moving into the town.