Sundown towns were jurisdictions that kept African Americans out on purpose

Evidence

There were other methods of keeping black Americans off desirable land. We’ve all seen photos of “whites only” drinking fountains. Well, imagine a Whites Only sign hanging over an entire town or a whole neighborhood. That’s what a sundown town is: an area where black people had to be out by sundown or risk their lives. They were allowed to work there but not live there. James Loewen, the author of Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism, describes them as “any organized jurisdiction that for decades kept African Americans or other groups from living in it and was thus ‘all-white’ on purpose.” He puts “all-white” in quotes because in some instances towns allowed a single black household as an exception. — Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations, 337

Categorization

• DEFINE: Provides the precise Loewen definition, which matters for a legal-adjacent claim about exclusion by jurisdiction.
• QUESTION: Note the ‘single black household as exception’ nuance — potential counter-example/loophole to address when defending the extent of exclusion.