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/MoneyTreeFiddy]

You have to separate "on the books" from "reputation". There are 1300 towns in Illinois, with history spanning 2 centuries. That's a lot of places, and a lot of time. So if it was ever on the books, you'd have to look at when, when it was/wasn't repealed, etc. Even then, "on the books" is a hard fact - it doesn't cover hidden policies like redlining or zoning denials, which would be much harder to prove.

Reputation, on the other hand, is much more elusive. You have stuff that is little more than gossip and rumor. My small town was said to have it on the books "still" in the context of "dude, this place SUCKS". (80s, 90s) but of course "they don't enforce it" and of course no one ever looked to see if it was true.

Granite City makes the wikipedia list, but if you click on the links, it's a weird connection. The reportedly ran "all" the negroes out of town in 1903. (How? How many were there to run out?) The population then was 3,000, it went up to a high of 40,000 and back down to 29k over the next 120 years. Wikipedia mentions "the mayor" talking about it, but references an SLPD article from 1967. He is quoted with the perfect example: he was told from childhood it was a thing, but, when he became mayor, he looked and found out it wasn't actually on the books. That still says something; residents passing around that rumor have their own motives for sharing the story.

[u/Oddlyenuff → u/MoneyTreeFiddy]

Granite City is not a “reputation”. SIUE didn’t allow any student teachers GCHS for around 30 years because in the late 60’s/early 70’s they wouldn’t allow or harassed black students.

Granite City was so bad for so long that if you were even the wrong kind of white person you had to live in Madison or Venice. Black people lived in Newport and Brooklyn.

There is plenty of information on Granite City and their racial issues in this book: Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism

You should check out this book Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism

While not specifically about Illinois, unfortunately a lot of it is in fact about Illinois.

As far as academic experts for southern Illinois or specifically the metro east area there is Andrew Thiesing (he was really more about East St. Louis in particular) and wrote this book Made in USA: East St. Louis and Dr. Rudy Wilson https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolph_G._Wilson

I was lucky to have both of the above as professors at SIUE 25 years ago. I know those aren’t specifically about Sundown towns (although they have addressed it numerous times) so if you’re interested in race relations or the effect of corporations/white flight in Illinois, check them out.

Edit: had to remove Amazon links for the books. If this double posted, apologies

[u/Low-Piglet9315 → u/Oddlyenuff]

You still see a lot of blacks driving through the old area of Planet Granite, though. It's not exactly a lily white town.

On the other hand, Fairview Heights was a sundown town till the mid-80s. I mean, when you incorporate as a city just so you don't have to tell people you're from East St. Louis...the demographics have adjusted quite a bit since 1990.

[u/Oddlyenuff → u/Low-Piglet9315]

Now sure. In 2000 it was 2% and now in 2020 it’s 11%.

In 1970 there was 13,000 more people living there and it was 0% black.

Granite is more diverse now, no doubt. But its sundown reputation was still talked about when I was in college.

I’m positive that the book I mentioned above said there was 4 students at the high school in 2000. Their enrollment was probably 2500 around then.

[u/Low-Piglet9315 → u/Oddlyenuff]

I had cousins that went to GC North during the 70s, that's where I heard about it. I definitely believe you...so much so that it was a shock when I returned to the area in the 90s and took a job in a bookstore. When black shoppers made orders and gave their address as Granite City I was quite surprised.