[blockquote type=”left”]”Circularities get built in. Some working-class or multiclass sundown suburbs have passed ordinances requiring teachers, firefighters, police officers, and other city workers to live within their corporate limits. Thus they can be assured that all their employees will be white…In turn, African Americans are ineligible to be hired for future openings, since they would first have to move in to be considered. This is subtler than an open prohibition…yet the suburb stays white.” (253)[/blockquote]

Are there any residency restrictions in your town? Can there be downsides to this? What happens when police officers live outside the city and don’t know the community they work in? Where do the majority of the teachers and city employees in your town live?

[blockquote type=”left”]”It is important to understand that most jobs in big cities were flatly closed to African Americans throughout the Nadir. Breweries in Milwaukee started to hire African Americans only in 1950, the city did not employ a single black teacher until 1951…In northern cities, most jobs in construction were reserved for whites until the 1970s.” (141)[/blockquote]

So not only were free black citizens denied land wealth, they were denied career wealth as well. How would there have been a difference in your parents lives or your life if their entire field had been denied to them?

What has been your experiences with black people or other minorities throughout your life when it comes to careers? As a student, did you have nonwhite teachers or principals? Did you have minority coworkers or bosses?

What were your parents experiences? Did they have any stories or attitudes they passed down to you?

[blockquote type=”left”]”The claim that lack of jobs caused towns to go all-white is rendered preposterous by those sundown towns where African Americans have been allowed to work but not to live. African Americans helped build Hoover Dam but had to commuter from Las Vegas to do it, while white workers and their families lived in Boulder City, a sundown town built just for them. African Americans helped build Kentucky Dam, but after they finished, their housing – ‘Negro Village’ – was razed, they were booted out, and Marshall County, Kentucky resumed being a sundown county.” (141)[/blockquote]

Today, Marshall County, Kentucky is 98.3% white, and was recently named the best county to live in within the state of Kentucky for 10 years straight. Best county for who?

Are any towns or counties in your area named ‘best place to live‘? What are the demographics? Best place for who?

[blockquote type=”left”]”Not only do many sundown towns remain all-white, but whites are still forming new ones and converting independent sundown towns to sundown suburbs by fleeing to them from newly desegregating inner suburbs.” (387)[/blockquote]

How would you describe your neighborhood to someone like Loewen? How old is it? Does it have any public amenities? What are the attitudes of your neighbors? How long have you lived there? Where did you move from? Why?

[container]
This series is available in a handy 40 page pdf that includes journaling space for the personal questions.

Buy now

[/container]
[container]

An Integrated Life

a series studying the book Sundown Towns by James Loewen

[/container]

[container]
Part 1 – A Series
Part 2 – Our Racist Foundations
Part 3 – What Are We Taught Is Normal?
Part 4 – All Whites Are Responsible
Part 5 – What Are You Known For Supporting
Part 6 – What Makes You Stay Silent?
Part 7 – Gravitating Towards the Comfortable
Part 8 – Social Exclusion
Part 9 – Restrictive Covenants and Governments
Part 10 – Do You Live in a Sundown Town? Before You Say No…
Part 11 – Still Forming Sundown Towns Today
Part 12 – Sundown Suburbs = NIMBY
Part 13 – City Schools, Suburb Schools
Part 14 – What Are You Supporting With Your Way of Life?
Part 15 – Living In Fear
Part 16 – An Historical Comparison
Part 17 – Hidden Fault Lines
Part 18 – Reputations Are Important
Part 19 – Until We Solve the Problem of Sundown Neighborhoods…
Part 20 – The TL;DR Version

[/container]