'Sundown towns' linked to lingering racial bias
A sundown town is a community that prohibited Black people from staying within its borders after dark or from owning property. This was done through laws, signs, threats, harassment or violence. More than 150 years after the end of slavery and a generation after Civil Rights reforms, a new study finds that places designated as "sundown towns" in the past are more racist today.
Sundown towns, communities that banned Black residents from remaining after dark or owning property, have been linked to lingering racial bias in the United States, according to a new study. These towns, once prevalent across the nation but most common in the Midwest, still exhibit higher levels of both implicit and explicit racial bias, even 150 years after the abolition of slavery.
The study, led by psychology professor Jimmy Calanchini from the University of California Riverside, analyzed data from over 1.3 million white participants living in counties with and without historical sundown towns. Interestingly, counties with the most sundown towns did not have a proportionally higher bias compared to those with just one or none.
While historical factors like slavery and migration did not directly explain the findings, the authors suggest that the enduring legacies of discriminatory practices, limited interracial contact, and violence may have created a persistent pattern of bias in these areas.
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