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MI 'Sundown Towns' Shed Light on Racist Past

city skyline at sunset
Courtesy
/
flickr/Steve Marr
"Sundown towns" were places across the U.S. were African-Americans were unwelcome after dark.

America has had a long history of turbulent race relations.  It took nearly a century of struggle after the Civil War to tear down the Jim Crow laws that isolated blacks from whites.  While institutional racism had been embedded into the law in the segregated South, racial disparities took on more subtle forms in the North.  So-called “sundown towns” existed from coast to coast -- including in Michigan.

 

 

Kevin Lavery served as a general assignment reporter and occasional local host for Morning Edition and All Things Considered before retiring in 2023.
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