In Jason Aldean’s new song “Try That In A Small Town” you can hear that he really wants to use the n-word, but in order to proclaim that the song is “not at all racist” he instead relies on that old segregationist staple: the dog whistle. The song is full of coded messages that harken back to the “good old days” of Sundown Towns, places where once the sun set, being Black was a capital offense.
If you want a breakdown of the lyrics and how Aldean absolutely did sing thinly veiled code words that make “a lynching carol for racist white people in America,” I recommend reading Michael Harriot’s Twitter thread on the subject. Harriot’s book Black AF History comes out in September, and I’ll be buying a copy.
Now, to the discussion of Sundown Towns.
Legal restrictions on the nighttime movements of non-white people in the United States date to a half century prior to the American Revolutionary War. New Hampshire proclaimed in 1714 that “No Indian, Negro, or Molatto is to be from Home after 9 o'clock” because they feared “burglaries” and “great disorders.” After the U.S. Civil War, when slavery was outlawed across the nation, Sundown Towns exploded in popularity. In the century that followed thousands of towns proclaimed this here’s a white neighborhood if it’s dark and you’re dark then you’re dead.
It applied not just to Black people, but Native Americans, Chinese, Japanese, and in some cases, Jews.
The growth of Sundown Towns filled with bigoted asswipes achieved new heights during World War I, with the “Great Migration.” Emancipation didn’t equate to opportunity for southern Black people. The plantation economy made it impossible for most to earn more than a subsistence living. But with millions of white dudes going off to kill Germans in the war, the northern states were suddenly short of workers, and millions of Black people moved north to fill those jobs in factories, tanneries, and on railroads.
But a lot of those racist small towns—and just FYI Jason Aldean was born in Macon, Georgia, an actual city of over 150,000 people and not a small town at all—weren’t too fucking thrilled about these Black people suddenly showing up, and they decided to adopt an official white’s only policy.
Non-white people could sometimes be allowed to work or travel in the town while the sun was up, but they couldn’t make a home there. Once it was dark, they needed to get the fuck out or risk brutal beatings, imprisonment, or lynching. Many signs on such towns proudly proclaimed their racism as a “Good Place to Live” because of their “No Negroes” policy.
The white’s only policy was enforced via peer pressure. If your business dared offer work to or serve Black people, you’d be boycotted into oblivion.
Black people who drove through such towns could expect to be followed by police; it was exceptionally difficult and dangerous for Black people to travel any distance because of the exclusionary nature of such towns that permeated their routes. This is what led to the writing of The Negro Motorist Green Book, a travel guide for Black people listing where they could find services, food, and lodging during their trip. Written by Victor Hugo Green, a Black postal worker from Harlem, the book was published in 1936 and over the next three decades was used by approximately two million people.
Sundown Towns existed in every single state in the continental U.S. With the Civil Rights Movement, the towns finally began to change their evil ways, albeit begrudgingly. Alas, although no longer legal, they still exist in a de facto manner. There are numerous white communities across the United States that exclude all others via economic methods, and other places where racism is so prevalent—including in the police forces—that any non-white person is at serious risk should they decide to visit.
Get my sweary fucking history book ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY SH!T WENT DOWN.
Fuck that small town clown and his lousy "music."
I'd never even heard of "sundown towns" until I read Lovecraft Country. I found it so preposterous that I had to look it up. It literally made me sick to my stomach reading about them. People are shit.