“It’s when you veer off to the back roads that don't connect to the highway, that's when you find yourself in trouble, and it sucks because the hiking spots in these back wooded areas like West Virginia and Kentucky.” “En route, there were a bunch of Confederate flags, a lot of ‘Make America Great Again’ flags, there's even a few Klan lounges in South Carolina that we came across,” said Williams. As Americans flock to the open roads in a bid to reclaim their summer after more than a year of restrictions, the freedom and excitement of the road trip isn’t without caveats for minorities looking to venture to less diverse destinations. In recent years, the angst of being a Black motorist has been captured with the hashtag #DrivingWhileBlack. I wanted to get in touch with my nature side and I wanted to explore the rural American South,” said Williams. “When I usually travel, I’m going to cities like New York, Miami, Atlanta, major populated cities. In June 2020, he made the seven-hour journey by road with a non-Black friend to visit Virginia’s hidden gem, Devil’s Bathtub. Williams took up hiking as a hobby in response to the pandemic. Today, the legacy of sundown towns continues to cast a shadow on the tradition of the great American road trip, creating additional challenges for Black motorists who dare to journey off the beaten path. "A travel advisory has been issued to warn that any Black people in or traveling to San Antonio use increased caution when visiting the city due to the city's policing policies that put Black Lives in danger," wrote organizers in a press release. (The state of Missouri offered no public response to the NAACP but did make a Black woman the face of its tourism campaign last year.)Īnd in 2020, a group called the Defund San Antonio Police Department Coalition issued a travel warning for San Antonio, labeling the city as a sundown town. The NAACP also referenced anecdotal examples of hate crimes, and data which showed Black motorists were 75% more likely to be pulled over and stopped and searched by police enforcement than their white counterparts. 43 would require employees prove that their protected characteristics were a “motivating factor” for being discriminated against when previously the requirement was that simply showed it was a “contributing factor.” The decision was in response to a bill designed to limit discrimination lawsuits by making changes to the Missouri Human Rights Act. In 2017, the NAACP issued a travel warning for the entire state of Missouri, a first for the organization. Last year the concept was portrayed on the premiere episode of HBO’s Lovecraft Country in which the three protagonists are forced to flee a town while being stalked by a police officer.Īctivist organizations have used the term more recently. In her 1969 memoir I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, the late poet Maya Angelou describes Mississippi with the phrase, “Don’t Let the Sun Set on You Here, Nigger, Mississippi.” The same sentiment would appear on signage posted at city boundaries of sundown towns, making clear that Black people were not welcome and risked their lives if they dared to defy the decree. They are all over the US and concentrated particularly in the Midwest, he says.ĭespite the phenomenon, historical references to sundown towns are few and often wrapped into tales of the expulsion of Black communities in places like Forsyth County and Anna, Illinois, which is allegedly known colloquially to be an acronym for “Ain’t No Niggers Allowed.”
But these towns aren’t just in the South. “The racism and prejudice is still in those towns, the mindset from the Jim Crow era is passed down, and these people have no exposure because they don't get out.”Īccording to Loewen’s rolling database, at least 60 of Kentucky’s 782 towns are believed to be or previously have been considered sundown towns. I'm being naive, traveling, but they don't travel to certain parts of the country because certain people have those mindsets,” Williams told BuzzFeed News. “A lot of African Americans don't really travel to certain parts of the country.
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