Mc Kinney, Texas "Best Places To Live in America"
I.
Cognitive dissonance question
When did you first become aware of
race?
Sundown towns are towns like Anna, Illinois, where it is
said that the name ANNA stands for “Aint’ No N-----s Allowed” and where there
is a memory of the town having had signs at the corporate border that say, Nigger, Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on You in
_________________. In Anna, and
nearby Jonesboro, such signs existed as recently as 1970.
A famous Sundown town in Kentucky is Corbin, the home of
Col. Sanders, who was never really any kind of Colonel, but who was a great
salesman for a fried chicken recipe. Corbin drove out all of the black
residents in 1919 after a poker game between workers on the rail line. Later
the story was changed to one about a rape and a hanging. But from that time on,
blacks were kept out.
Corbin KY, 1930s
Most of these Sundown Towns were started by an incident or
rationalized by a story about a crime, a loss of jobs, or sometimes very absurd
explanations.
In reality the towns were created deliberately, and the
roots were manifold: labor strife (the earliest unions were vehemently racist);
school segregation; the help of the FHA, which made home loans nigh impossible
for African Americans; real estate salespersons and contracts;
Perhaps you, like I, find all of this shameful and a cause
for aversion. You know, though, that it’s true. Places in the South and the
Midwest have been and still are, if not blatantly, then covertly racist.
But, hold on.
In fact, there are almost no Sundown Towns in South.
Almost all Sundown Towns are in the Northeast, the Upper
South, and the Midwest. Some of the most glaring examples are Darien, CT; LaJolla, CA; and the west shore of the Great
lakes near Detroit around and including Grosse Point.
slightly swarthy, or not at all?" and "Accents -
pronounced, medium, slight, not at all?" The
maximum score for the survey was 100, with most
prospective residents needing a score of 50.
However, according to Michigan Attorney General
Paul Adams, "a Pole is expected to have five
additional points. An Italian, Yugoslav, Greek,
Syrian, Lebanese, Armenian, Maltese, Rumanian, or
other southern European is required to have 15
additional points. A Jew is required to have 35
additional points and his points are more difficult
to achieve because of penalties in a special marking
system for Jews. Orientals and Negroes are not
considered at all." (from the SUNDOWN TOWNS website)
So.. when we think about the pool party
that was held in Texas, and the out-of-control police officer who sat on a 14
year old girl, we have to place it in a context of white privilege. And while
we are speaking of Sundown Towns, and neighborhoods, we can talk for a moment
about pools.
The daycare sued. The 60 kids and the
daycare were awarded over 1 million dollars.
One little boy was interviewed, a guy
about six. You know what he said? He said that when they got into the pool, the
white parents started getting their kids out of the pool. He heard them saying
things about the black kids.
This is painful. This makes us feel
uncomfortable. We don’t want to know these things.
Valley Club pool
But that is the swim club, the pool,
that my Uncle Don and Aunt Julia took us to whenever we visited them in the
summer. I recognized it right away when I heard the stories. Going there was
such a treat. They had pretzel sticks and I used to get one and put mustard on
it. I can recall so many details of the days we spent there, carefree and
joyful. But, of course, I didn’t know, nor did anyone tell me, that what I
enjoyed was denied, and would still be denied 50 years later, to kids of color.
I think the pool/swimming issue is particularly painful and present, is one we can all touch upon. For there is almost no one who did not go swimming someplace during the summer, and who did not realize, at some level, that a form of racism was being exercised in who could and could not swim where. By the way, The Valley Swim Club finally declared bankruptcy and is now closed. And the children, their counselors, and various community groups are receiving their portions of the settlement. But what sum of money can erase the memory of being SIX years old and having white mothers pull their children out of the pool when you jump in? In 2009? In Pennsylvania. Not Kentucky, not Alabama. the suburbs of Philadelphia.
When we think about pools, about swim
clubs, and exclusion, we are talking about suburbs. And in his book and
website, Sundown Towns, Prof. James Loewen proves convincingly that
virtually every suburb that was intentionally formed was created as a
sundown town.
The real issue is: Why did we never ask
a question? A simple question, such as, “Why do so many Black people live in
Camden?” or “Don’t African American people want to go to the shore?’ and if we
asked, and the answer made no sense, why didn’t we make it our business, once
we were old enough, to say something, do something, make waves, make at least
some ripples?
Growing up, in the same house I’m now
staying in, I was on the far edge of the small town of Hainesport, just the
equivalent of a few city blocks from Mt. Laurel. And yet, I never knew that
there was any reason why there were no “colored” children at all in my
elementary school; nor did I ask. I only met two persons of color prior to going to the bigger
High School in Mt. Holly: Emma, who cared for us and for the house after my
mother died, and Mr. Cook, the Phys ed teacher.
Actually, the house I live in is very likely to have been on the Underground Railroad, as the town of Haines'Port, like all of the surrounding towns, was founded by Quakers, all of whom were very active in the Underground RR. Lately, I have been looking at some of the nooks and crannies in the basement and attic and wondering which ones were devised to hide escaping slaves. I wish they could tell.
My childhood home, Hainesport N.J.
Sadly, these Quakers were no so peaceful when it came to the Lenni-Lenape Indians, whom they displaced from the entire area. But, at least, the truth about that is told. It would be rather difficult to lie.
Mt. Laurel Friends Meeting House
My father referred to a road near us as
“Jewtown.” I had no idea what that meant, nor did I meet anyone who was Jewish
until much later in life. But on that road, in addition to some very
dilapidated and decrepit buildings and houses, was one that intrigued me. On it
was a symbol that I now realize as the Star of David. In the 1960s, almost all
of the Jews of Mt. Laurel had left that intentional ghetto and had sold their
homes to poor whites and African Americans.
But the story is way more complicated.
“Jewtown,” also known as Springville, had been populated by freed Blacks and tenant farmers since the 17th century. This is understandable, since
we know that Mt. Laurel, like many of the surrounding towns, was founded by
Quakers, who not only employed and lived peacefully with freed Blacks, but
actually operated the Underground Railroad. Only after WWII, when Blacks sought
an end to segregated schools, and proposed to build housing for low income
families, did the Sundown policies begin. In 1970, the Mayor spoke to citizens
at the AME Chapel and told them: If you
can’t afford to live in our town, then you will just have to leave.”
Jacobs Chapel AME Church
(ironically, if you go to the Mt. Laurel webpage, the only photo under historic places is this chapel. Yet no mention is made of the landmark case that changed the face of public housing, albeit by fits and starts)
All of this, and lawsuits that
followed, gave rise to the Mt. Laurel I and II decisions, NJ State Supreme
Court Decisions, as well as the 1985 Fair Housing Act, all of which provide for
an allotted number of low and moderate income housing units in every
municipality. Still, many zip codes get around this, as they are able to “buy”
off part of their obligations by supporting housing projects in neighboring
cities or towns. But these are landmark cases, as important to race relations
as Brown v. Board of Education. I am appalled that I knew nothing, and that no
one told me, and that later, I didn’t pay attention.
Gradually, I learned some of these things. But not until long
after I left this state. I lived there. I rode my bike past the former synagogue.
I benefitted from the privilege of living in Hainesport, Moorestown (which once
only allowed Blacks in the back row of its movie theatre), and at the Jersey
shore, where African Americans (and Jews) were excluded both actively and
passively, and in some cases still are. Did you know that there were gates at
the entrance to Ocean Grove that separated it from Asbury Park? They are no
longer there, but longtime residents are sure that the purpose of these gates
were to keep A-A out after sundown. Of course, Ocean Grove is a wonderful
Christian place, so maybe that isn’t true.
Finally, I wonder whether anyone who lives in Mays Landing or
Hamilton township has heard of Mizpah? This part of your township was formed as
a Jewish community for a group of cloak makers although it died out as a
community. I wonder who lives there now? Are they white or African American?I
am asking this because Hamilton Township is listed in Dr. Loewen’s database
along with this report:
Mizpah Cloak Factory and the Jewish community
Mizpah Hotel (1930s)
Mizpah, NJ... an African American community
Hamilton
Township is a mostly pinelands township
about 15 miles west of Atlantic City. A former mayor
recalled growing up in the town, and how there were
no blacks allowed after dark in the Mays Landing
village section of the township, with the exception of
the town barber. Instead, everyone of color was
required to live (and to this day many still do) live
about five miles west in the Mizpah section of the
township. They were informal restrictions, he said, but
they existed.
Here is
another report from a Cape May County area resident:
I grew up in Southern
New Jersey, on the Delaware bay. And I have never lived in a more overtly
vicious racist area, and I have lived in both NC and VA the last 23 years. My
aunt lives in Dividing Creek, NJ, a very small redneck village close to Newport
and Fortescue. It has never allowed a black family to live there. Ever. Just a
few years ago a very brave family did, and their HOUSE was burned down while
they were away. Homes proudly fly the Battle Flag.
As Loewen shrewdly notes, “our
culture teaches us to locate overt racism long ago (in the nineteenth century)
or far away (in the South) or to marginalize it as the work of a few crazed
deviants.”
(Dan Carter)
As I read Loewen’s book, however, it seemed to me that white
Northerners chose a different path: amnesia.
It is, I suppose, the natural response of most cultures
when confronted with a painful past. “Every nation,” wrote the
nineteenth-century French philosopher Ernest Renan, “is a community both of
shared memory and of shared forgetting,” what British statesman William
Gladstone called “a blessed act of oblivion” that allows old adversaries to put
aside past grievances and live together in peace.
But we are not living together in peace. We are living separately, in suspicion and
distrust. Everywhere we look, we see the long shadow of our racist past in the
re-segregation of our public schools and the growing isolation of the poorest
African Americans in impoverished inner cities, in the continuing wealth and income
gap between black and white, and in the unconscionable explosion of a
“prison-industrial complex” that incarcerates millions of black men, consigning
them to a lifetime in the shadows of our society.
None of us should feel personal responsibility for what
our parents or grandparents did or did not do. But there will be guilt enough
for our own generation if we do not confront and address the bitter
consequences of the story that James Loewen has revealed so powerfully in Sundown
Towns.
II.
Allies
When we learn about these things, what then
can we do?
According to Loewen, there is a great deal
that can be done, and should be done. Indeed, churches and civic organizations
are just the groups to do it, because clearly, neither chambers of commerce,
Historical Societies, or locals who benefit from and/or are uncomfortable with
white privilege have done anything nor will they.
We can do the research. We can work for
legal solutions, reparations, recognition, or reconciliation.
We can help to be agents of truth telling
to present and future generations.
We can apologize for our inability to see
what we should have seen so clearly, for being a part of the problem and
accepting the benefits that came along with it.
III.
Opportunity
In
w hat ways is the sky opening up now?
Residential segregation is one reason race continues to be such a problem
in America. But race really isn’t the problem. Exclusion is the problem. As soon as we
realize that the problem is white supremacy, rather than black existence or
black inferiority, then it becomes clear that sundown towns are r racial
inequality is encoded in the most basic single fact in our society—where you
can live—the united states will face continuing racial tension, if not overt
conflict. (Loewen, p. 17)
