ST. CLOUD, Fla. – Last year, St. Cloud denounced its past reputation as a “sundown town.”
A “sundown town” is a place that once “enacted legal or conventional practices meant to restrict the movement or residency of Black people and other people of color within their borders,” according to Nature Journal.
News 6 spoke with public historian Anthony Dixon, who has authored books about the African diaspora in Florida and the state’s Black Seminoles, about what “sundown towns” are.
“‘Sundown towns’ basically are these areas in which there’s either an unspoken rule or there’s a law that prohibits Black people from being out after a certain time of night,” he explained.
Dixon notes that “sundown towns” originated from slavery when enslaved people faced numerous restrictions.
“They couldn’t walk in groups of more than five and they certainly couldn’t be out at night,” he said. “Of course, that was not only a measurement of control, but it was also rooted in the fear of some backlash of uprising. So, as the enslavement period ended, those slave codes that held those types of ideologies and laws became black codes because they still had the ideology of controlling black lives and the fear was still there.
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“So, we get to a period where they have ‘sundown towns,’ particularly, becoming not just the social norms but also put into law in local areas where Blacks are not allowed outside of their homes or to even be out in the street passing through a city after a certain time of night.”
After segregation ended, these towns persisted, even if there were no laws restricting people.
“The sad part is that ‘sundown towns’ didn’t just cease to exist after the Civil Rights movement,” he said. “You knew harassment was a higher possibility. You could get all types of speeding tickets and get pulled over, and it could escalate from there.”
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“Because of the sundown town, Black families couldn’t go in certain areas,” said Paul, explaining that the heavy reputation has had a trickle-down effect on tourism with travelers passing through often avoiding the city altogether.