11 Sundown Towns in Texas You Should be Aware Of
When most people think of Texas, they think of cowboys, cattle, and wide-open spaces. But there is a dark side to the Lone Star State that many people are unaware of. If you’re ever driving through the great state of Texas, be sure to keep an eye out for any “sundown towns.”
What is a Sundown Town in Texas?
A sundown town is an American city or town in which, historically, non-white people were not allowed to live or stay after dark. The term is most commonly used in reference to towns that were segregated by race during the Jim Crow era. However, there are also examples of towns that excluded other minority groups, such as Jews, Mormons, Native Americans, Chinese Americans, and Mexican Americans, to name a few.
History of Sundown Towns in Texas and across the USA
Sundown towns started as a way to keep African Americans from moving into all-white neighborhoods and taking white jobs. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, many towns across the United States passed ordinances that prohibited black people from living within town limits. Often, these ordinances were coupled with violence and intimidation tactics to ensure that Black people complied with the rules.
The earliest legislative restriction came in 1714 from New Hampshire called “An Act To Prevent Disorders In The Night.” This law was passed in an attempt to blame African Americans, Native Americans, and Molatto servants and slaves for nighttime disorders, insolences, and burglaries that occurred after dark. The law outlawed people of color from being out of their home after 9pm.
Texas has a long history of sundown towns, dating back to the days of slavery. Even after the Civil War ended and slaves were emancipated, many Texas towns remained segregated. In some cases, Sundown signs were even posted at the town limits to warn non-whites that they were not welcome after dark.
Unwritten Rules of Sundown Towns
A sundown town does not need to have laws or signage explicitly stating that non-whites are not allowed. In many cases, the town’s unwritten rules are enough to keep minorities out. For example, a town may require all businesses to close at sundown. This makes it difficult for black people to find employment or forces them into service positions like cooks, maids, and butlers. Additionally, a town may have only one or two hotels that refuse to serve non-white guests.
Sundown towns were once very prevalent throughout the United States, and their legacy unfortunately still persist. However, there are still a few sundown towns in Texas that you should be aware of if you’re ever driving through the state. Here are 11 of them:
Alba, Texas
Alba was a small sundown town in northeast Texas with a population of just under 500 people. The town was founded in 1843 and has always been an all-white community. In 2000, the town made headlines for being 98.6% white. Theories on how the community got its name differ but a popular one claims the town’s name is derived from the Latin word for “white,” and was named because settlers did not permit African Americans to live there.
Alvin, Texas
Alvin is a city in Brazoria County, Texas with a population of approximately 27,000 people, with about 1,000 of them being Black. In 1933, Roy S. Lapham was murdered in a mysterious ax slaying on Christmas morning. The suspect was a Black man, but citizens refused to believe that theory. Primarily, because “practically no negroes are allowed to live in Alvin and that Lapham’s home was near the Mexican quarter of the town,” as stated in The Galveston Daily News.
Comanche County, Texas
Comanche County is home to many sundown towns in Texas. It started when Moses Jones, a Black man in Comanche County, killed two white and two Black children, then set fire to his white employer’s home in 1875. He was arrested and shot. The people of Comanche County determined that this was a unique situation and that all other Blacks would be allowed to stay in the area.
In 1886 a Comanche Black man killed a white woman. He was immediately lynched, and a meeting of all white citizens came together to discuss the future of their towns. They determined that two killings by Black men of white people were too much, so they proposed to eliminate the Black population from their town. African Americans were given a few days to get out of the county. Signs were posted around the town that Black people were not welcome, and if they’re caught in the area after dark, it would not end well for them.
By 1900, the census showed that of a 23,000 population, every person was white.
A news clipping from The Courier-Journal discusses the exile of Blacks in Comanche from the perspective of a white man and whether a new town should consider the exile as well. “Our people [white people], of course, gave negroes all the morals they have…I lived in a county in Texas [Comanche]…where negroes were not allowed to live, except one family… I couldn’t ask such folk [“brave white Americans”] to do my little bachelor chores – I mean the running of errands and a hundred little things that we don’t hesitate to ask a negro to do. Oh, I missed the negro and never want to be without them as a servant.”
Comanche, Texas
Comanche, Texas itself is worth mentioning as Sundown Town in Texas, as there is a long history of racism and violence against African Americans. The town was founded in 1856, and by 1860, all of the town’s residents were white. In 1940, a Sundown Town book by James Loewen mentions that an organization in Comanche proudly said that their town was “the home of the purest Anglo-Saxon population of any county in the United States.”
Today, there are very few people of color in the town. Many Black children who grow up in Comanche often wish there were more Black kids. In a July 2000 interview, Talila Harlmon talks about how she felt alone in the crowd. If there was a party, she often wasn’t invited; even if her classmates wanted to, their parents wouldn’t allow it. There was no one to really relate to and no hairstylist who could do her hair. She grew up being told that sometimes life is difficult, and you just have to deal with it.
De Leon, Texas
De Leon is one of the sundown towns in Texas linked to Comanche County. This sundown town in Texas was also all-white and had signs that said racial slurs, telling Blacks to stay out of town. They expelled their Black population in 1886.
Elmo, Texas
A news article from Weekly Charlotte Observer explains why Elmo, Texas adopted a sundown town mindset. “Whereas the race problem is of momentous importance to the Southern people, being one that must be solved some time, and in view of the unprecedented number of recent outrages by black brutes on white children and women.
“Whereas, negro emigrants are pouring in upon us with an increase of ratio which, if not stopped, will result in ruin to our schools and society, and whereas we have in our midst a class of colored citizens that is a menace to society and that prevent a desirable class of white people locating with us.
“It is the judgment of this meeting that no negro immigrant be given any home in our midst, and that the objectionable ones be peaceably, quiet and lawfully removed from us as soon as the present crop is harvested.”
Leggett, Texas
The small community of 500 residents has a history for setting curfews for African Americans and forbidding them from church meetings and using the railroad station or post office around 1919.
Sour Lake, Texas
Known for having one of the biggest sinkholes in Texas and the first oil well by The Texas Company, this small 1,770 resident town is one of the oldest surviving towns in Hardin County. It was declared a sundown town in Texas around 1903 and promoted violent exiles of Blacks from the area.
Terrell, Texas
Incorporated in 1874, Terrell was another sundown town that did not allow African Americans to live there. The Weekly Charlotte Observer mentions, “In Terrell also very few negroes are barely tolerated, and in many sections everything is done to discourage negro immigration.”
Active Sundown Towns: Vidor, Texas
This is one of the most well-known modern sundown towns in Texas and in the USA because of the large number of Ku Klux Klan members. Klan members frequently marched through town and burned crosses on the hills to intimidate Blacks, causing many to flee.
This sundown town may have started a long time ago, but still remains an unsafe area for Blacks. It was only until the early 80s that their sundown town signs were taken down.
Demonstrations and threats by white residents got so bad that the federal Office of Housing and Urban Development made it a priority to change the demographic to avoid all white town in the 90s. They move Black families into the housing projects in Vidor, but these families were harassed and threatened, forcing them to move out.
Today, African Americans and other people of color have multiple stories of racist remarks, taunts, threats of violence, and exclusions by the residents of the town. Check out destination reviews for Vidor, Texas on our Black Travel Review Site. There is also TikTok video from a black traveler explaining his experience in Vidor in the Summer of 2022
Woden, Texas
Like other sundown towns, Woden, Texas was an all-white community that didn’t allow African Americans to live there. Unincorporated with about 137 people according to the 2000 census, Woden is still not a very welcoming place to people of color.
Conclusion – Sundown Towns in Texas
While the Jim Crow era has long since passed, and many laws prohibit discrimination based on race, there are still some cultural sundown towns in Texas that exist today. These towns have a history of expelling or not allowing African Americans and other minorities to live there, and in some cases, the town’s culture has not changed much since then. If you are a person of color, it is important to be aware of these towns and their histories before visiting or moving to them.
Sources:
- https://www.newspapers.com/clip/29356056/the-courier-gazette/
- https://www.newspapers.com/clip/29073587/the-galveston-daily-news/
- https://www.newspapers.com/clip/29070944/the-courier-journal/
- https://www.jstor.org/stable/30237625
- https://books.google.com/books?id=abhIDwAAQBAJ
- https://www.newspapers.com/clip/29070745/weekly-charlotte-observer/
Thank you for this information. Very helpful when planning trips or thinking about relocating.
This is valuable information. Thank you.
I’m in San Antonio and it and Seguin were Sundown Towns. I am leaving here and moving back to California where I’m from.
Putting this here for people who are looking for places to live. I don’t know if this still stands – it was 15 years ago.
I moved to a community (not an actual town) outside of Gilmer, Texas years ago called Harmony. Very small – and I never left the house or mingled with people, so I just wasn’t aware of the unwritten rules. Not only this, but there was only one store, a couple churches, a school, and a restaurant. I’m not religious, didn’t like the restaurant, and the store was expensive, so I just wasn’t paying attention to the people around us much. My brother in law is black, and I took him (10 at the time) to the convenience store down the road to get some candy, and shortly began receiving KKK Newsletters placed in my mailbox. KKK! They would say things like “we are not a hate organization, we are (insert nonsense here).”
Of course, then I began to look into this. Never in my wildest dreams did I think these kinds of places still existed. I learned that there were 0 black families who lived in this community and only a handful of Hispanic people, and the community actively drove them out when they tried to settle. It was shocking to say the least. We gladly moved. Thank you for sharing this. People need to know. ♥️
What really incenses me is when people continue to protect these legacies with all their might- even at the horrific pain of others. This happens when one group can’t see the other group as human! A lot of this God forsaken places still exist all over these United States . There can be NO forgiveness if there is not an acknowledgement of harm that was caused and that is still being perpetuated. There are many towns in Tx not listed. ie Conroe, Tx. Baytown( East Houston), it is sickening to know the history and continue to be affected by it in real time. Much despair.
Peace to the oppressed 🕊
Are there sundown towns in Seguin / San Antonio because I lived in San Antonio for 8 years but I don’t do much but work, school and school .
I also go to TLU in Seguin so that’s why I asked ?!
Thank you
What are you talking about? I’ve lived in San Antonio since like 6 or 7, and I’ve never heard, witnessed, experienced, etc San Antonio being a so called sun down town. People just say what ever now days
Seguin and New Braunfels considered safe for black family?
Taaylor I’m from Austin which is 48 miles from new braunfels, new braunfels is decent haven’t been there since I played them in football in high school they def have black folks in that city
Just so sad everyone can’t get along ? It’s all just ridiculous…live and let live.
Thank you so much!!
Help me understand are sundown cities only against black peoples or any non white race? I’m asking bcuz on this site I see no responses from true residents of sundown cities.
I was thinking about moving there and since I’m African American, is it a good place to live
They are against Black people
Now it makes sense as to why neighboring communities of Denton County are prejudice against American Indians. I tried to put a birthing announcement in the DENTON RECORD CHRONICLE Newspaper, and PATTY LAGARD told me in writing that I may word it however I want, but after she noticed I was American Indian and affiliated in a tribe, she denied to publish my birthing announcement. This is her exact wording in her response “We chose not to publish your notice. We thought this would be a regular birth announcement but with all the extra stuff added, we chose not to publish it.”
It’s according to how ignorant the residents in the city are. They may deal with other races but don’t mingle or trust your surroundings. Hatred runs deep in the veins of those infected by the disease. The crazy thing is those towns die off, children move away and don’t go back then the elderly population have no choice but to have blacks taking care of them. Backroad towns pay me well because they have no choice!
I went to new Braunfels I school went where some of my best friends were black!
New Braunfels High School …
I’ve lived in new Braunfels my entire life . Several of my closest friends are black and they lived here their entire lives. None of my friends have ever once mentioned receiving racist treatment from here in town. Yes, it’s true. Very few black people live here as compared to a town 15 miles away Seguin Texas. But the reason for that goes to back before the Civil War.
If you would like to know more please feel free to email me.
I was in New Braunfels late August and I personally saw more white people and I stood out. I am a Hispanic woman but I did not feel threaten. I saw a 4 African American women the whole weekend at this wineries (We kept bumping into them). Of course I was there visiting and they could of been too but not sure how the dynamic is to live there.
Man, I`m from Terrell Tx. and I can tell you, that this article has misinformation. Half the town is black, there are a lot of Mexicans and whites. Trust me things have changed significantly over the years.
The town was divided by a railroad track. Blacks on one side and whites on the other. Not anymore. Terrell has mixed and mingled communities. However, there is still racism just like anywhere else.
Hi Erin, I would love to connect with some of those friends you mentioned and get their perspective. Will send you an email
Hi Zmark, so just checked and town is about 25% Black which is significant but wouldn’t necessarily take away from its legacy of being a Sundown Town. However, we would love to get your perspective since you are from the area. If you go to the main site (https://greenbookglobal.com) you can share a review of the town which we would love to then highlight. Alternatively, you could share a review using the below google form. Let us know.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdG0XBqUEIBOg1BHckY3S7mGGW4I5dpG78VgU3YiDDSy21DVQ/viewform?usp=sf_link
I lived In Denton TX and worked in healthcare in many of the surrounding sundown towns. At the time I didn’t even know what that meant. It was my friends who told me to be careful. They had stories of people who went missing in Bowie TX, and all along the border of Oklahoma, including Whitesboro, Sherman, Denison, Montague, Nocona. When I applied for a position at Bowie Memorial Hospital, the CEO met with me to assure my protection. He arranged for all the newspapers in town, including the thrifty nickel to interview me and take my picture. They also interviewed me on the radio! He told me that the town had a history as a sundown town and had an effigy of a black man hanging with a sign “ nigger don’t let the sun go down on you!” My position was as the Director of Occupational Therapy /the only occupational therapist serving in the inpatient and outpatient department of the hospital as well as in the school district and home health. This had me driving throughout the county. All heads turned when I went out to lunch for the first time. I really found all the folks to be nice as all southerners are reputed to be. I even found myself stuck in the basement of the school (k-12) praying with all the kids and staff as a tornado blew through the playground and overhead. It turned over two semi trucks a block away. The destruction was all throughout the county.
The only direct prejudice I was aware of was when I applied for a loan to purchase a home in Denton and the Bowie Hospital Human Resources director had written a bunch of nasty comments to prevent me from qualifying. The bank official said it bore no negative light on me. It only confirmed her ill will and dark character.
Thank you for maintaining a dialogue about sundown towns. As a traveling therapist, I find it important to know the racial history of the areas I choose to work in even if only temporarily. So many recruiters don’t know and most companies don’t care. They just want to fill the positions. As another writer said earlier: the people are aging and many of the younger folks leave, so these old folks need to be cared for and rehabilitated by people of color or other ethnicities for whom they were bred to hate and abuse.
I live next to New Braunfel in Schertz and Cibolo and there is a good diversity with no issues that I’ve encountered. If you’re just visiting not sure how you missed it.
We left California during covid and came to San Antonio. We left a year later and came back, best decision we made.
My family never experienced racism until we moved to Texas. Never again!
San Antonio isn’t a sundown town, it’s just Texans hate Californians..
I live in Houston and was immediately told about Vidor and Alvin. Isn’t Jamie Foxx from Terrell, TX?! And, the commenter above who mentioned San Antonio…they were mentioning Sequin which is close to SA. They were not saying SA was a sundown town smdh. A few have told me Yoakum after I went there to work a few times, but I was always treated quite well.
I’m from Baytown. I viewed the comments to see if it was going to be listed.
Conroe, TX
The Woodlands, TX should be on here
I moved from the woodlands to spring where it’s a mixed suburb. White people call it the bad side of 45
I am a single black mother, who moved to San Antonio in the summer of 2005. I have 6 children. Whom 4 of them grow up here in San Antonio.
But from my experience. San Antonio was the best place to raise a family. My children are all grown now. They took have children and love raising them here. We would not have it any other way.
Why can’t people get along with each other?
Places where that stuff has happened like vidor I wouldn’t move too but a large percentage of Texas is not like that anymore..there’s still idiots in the world so there’s passive racism everywhere.just remember to cross your Ts and dot your I’s you should be fine..I’m from Texas and San Antonios not a sundown town at least by whites ,you gotta watch our Hispanic older brothers they more racist there than any white man could be to melanated ppl if u ask me ..not the younger generation but the older ones.the younger Hispanics are black ppl ..talk like us ,look like us with diamonds in their mouths and tattoos and they rock with us .shot out to my eses from the lone star state!! The younger generation of white people here in Texas don’t go for the mistreatment of blacks or any other ethnicity.racism is here so be aware ,and ready to remind anyone who treads on you but it’s getting better..
Vidor was a dreadful experience. While returning from New Orleans, my cousin and I, desperate to use the restroom, reluctantly chose to stop in Vidor, TX. We opted for the Waffle House along I-10, but the moment we walked in, it was as if we had stepped into a surreal movie scene. Everyone halted their conversations and activities, glaring at us with a “WTF are you doing here?” expression. Terrified, we sensed the hostility, swiftly turned around, and fled to the car in tears. We cried all the way to Houston, vowing never to set foot in Vidor again. The palpable animosity in that place was unsettling.
I (of South Asian descent) stopped in Quanay, Texas over Christmas break for lunch at Sisters Cafe.
This old man sees my aggie cap and starts telling me this:
“I was at Texas A&M back in the 80s when some Iranian students decided to picnic on the lawn of the Memorial Student Center. Since this was disrespecting our country, we went and got our horses. We dragged them out to the railroad tracks. But we let them go. They tried to file a police report, but there were no witnesses. What can you do?”
I stayed quiet and looked around the room at the other white folks listening to his story. Then he continues, ” There aren’t many draggings these days. We should have more of them now days.”
My son (freshman in college) quickly gathered our stuff and left the restaurant.
Clarendon tx should be put on this list they wont even talk about black american history here and they have a freaking hanging tree!!
In the North side of the tracks in Terrel its a mixture if Hispanic and white folks. But don’t be fooled. Most black people live on the south side of the tracks and you can tell one community from the other. You might also look into Crandall. I grew up there. They even have different cemeteries for white and black people.
Thank you for this information. It helps me to educate others about true black history.
Thank you for sharing that experience. Sorry you and your family went through that. Glad you lived another day to share it.
Why is that? Just curious why Texans hate Californians.
Amen