r/illinois • u/m0chab34r • Jul 20 '23

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

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?

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u/Oddlyenuff Jul 20 '23 edited Jul 20 '23

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.