9 Florida Sundown Towns you should be aware of in 2022

For many years Florida sundown towns were not an uncommon place to come across when traveling.

A sundown town is an American term for an all-white municipality or neighborhood that practiced a form of segregation by excluding people of color through restrictive covenants, zoning laws, or intimidation.

 Such towns were usually established to maintain white residency and prevent Black Americans and other non-whites from moving in. While the practice was most common in the northern states, there were also a number of sundown towns in Florida.

How They Formed

Sundown towns were often established by local ordinances or community pressure. In some cases, developers would include restrictive covenants in their property deeds that prevented non-whites from living there.

In other instances, towns would pass zoning laws that restricted certain types of businesses or housing to specific areas. This effectively kept people of color out of the town as they were unable to find work or afford a place to live.

However, restrictive covenants and zoning ordinances were not always successful in keeping minorities out of sundown towns. In many cases, intimidation and violence were used to scare them away.

These practices were often justified by claims that sundown towns were necessary to protect the property values of the community. However, the real reason was simply racism and white supremacy.

How Sundown Towns Influenced Diversity

While many sundown towns were created with the explicit purpose of excluding Black Americans, this was not always the case. In some instances, other non-white groups such as Hispanics, Native Americans, Jews, and Asian Americans were also barred from living in these communities.

Additionally, not all towns with a sundown history were all-white. In some cases, people of color were “allowed” to live within the community. However, they were typically segregated into specific neighborhoods or areas within the town — that is, if there was even more than one family still living there.

The existence of sundown towns has had a significant impact on the demographics of many communities across the United States. In some cases, these communities remain predominantly white to this day as a result of their history.

So how does a state like Florida, known to have a fairly diverse population, have sundown towns?

Florida Sundown Towns

Contrary to the belief that sundown towns are only in a handful of areas, they actually exist in every state, from California to Maine. Using Tougaloo’s Sundown Town Database, which lists a handful of known and suspected sundown towns, you can see the vast majority of these are located in the northern states. However, there are a few dozen entries for sundown towns in Florida as well.

The following is a list of some of the more notable ones:

• Cedar Key — Cedar Key is an American island city located in the Gulf of Mexico, just off the northwest coast of Florida. At the turn of the century, about 1/3rd of the population was Black, but now, there are near enough zero Black citizens living in this town.

Cedar Key residents burned down a nearby Black town and killing several in 1923. The town of Rosewood was destroyed, with many of its Black citizens ran out of the area. There are even whispers of a massacre that occurred that resulted in the death of 17 Black residents.

• Delray Beach — this town is notoriously one of the most anti-Semitic communities and while they had a significant Black population, it is said that they were restricted to a single neighborhood and weren’t able to leave after sundown. Another resident who lived in this area since the 1920s denies this claim but says that the area has always been anti-Semitic.
• Elfers — Elfers is made up of around 13,000 people with about 95% of them being white. In the 1920s, residents murdered Black sawmill workers and hung them near the entrance of the town with a sundown town sign warning Black visitors not to be caught there after dark.
• Gulfport — Shockingly, this small town still claims to be a Florida sundown town as recent as 2010. According to this article, the town has come a long way toward accepting people, but it still has some way to go.
• Miami Beach — Miami Beach was a sundown town in the late 40s and early 50s with exceptions made for some jobs like performers, hotel maids, and bus boys. In the 60s, most of the Black population were female live-in domestic workers. Bet you didn’t know that when you were down there on Spring Break
• Myakka City — In the early 1920s, this town was booming with its lumber and turpentine industries, largely in part due to the Black Americans that built the railroad. During the Great Depression, the KKK emerged and ran Black residents out of town.
• Ocoee — Ocoee has a history of violence against Black residents. When Black residents wanted the right to vote in 1920, a mob burned their community to the ground while keeping Black people from escaping by gunfire. This resulted in the death of 35 people.
• Palm Beach — This town has a similar story to Miami Beach. Black domestic workers were extremely common, and signs warned Black people to be off the street by 8 pm or they would be arrested.
• St. Cloud — This town was reported by a resident as a sundown town with a sundown warning sign many years ago, but apparently things are improving. There is still a “black section” of the town, but there are more and more Black people living and working in the city.

Unfortunately, it’s a long list with many other towns not included. There’s no denying that south Florida has a history of segregation and racist practices.

While the city of Miami Beach has long been a popular destination for those looking to enjoy some sun and relaxation, local Black resident Enid Pinkney hardly ever visited growing up. She describes never being able to stay after dark while visiting family in Miami Beach. This Florida sundown town is one of many that exist in the state.

Her story is not unique. Prior to the Civil Rights Movement, many Blacks living in other parts of the state were also prohibited from visiting certain beaches and neighborhoods in South Florida.

This began to change in the 1960s with the rise of the Civil Rights Movement where a series of protests and sit-ins eventually led to the desegregation of public spaces. This was a significant victory, not just for the local Black community, but for civil rights activists across the country.

Since then, South Florida has become more diverse, though it still faces challenges in terms of racial inequality. The city has a long way to go in terms of healing its divisions.

Yup, They Still Exist

After a long and hard-fought civil rights campaign, the United States Supreme Court banned racial segregation in public schools and other public places in 1954. Restaurants, hotels, and gas stations became available to everyone.

The 1968 Civil Rights Act was amended to include the Fair Housing Act, which made racial discrimination illegal. This act led to many sundown towns across America having to integrate.

You would think that by now sundown towns would be gone, right?

Unfortunately, this did not stop some people from continuing to try to keep minorities out of their communities, with many of these individuals having been fairly successful. Hostile, unwelcoming environments still exist to this day and while there may not be any official policies in place to keep minorities out, the effects are still the same.

In the past, there have been several reports throughout the years of minorities being followed and harassed. In some cases, real estate agents have been known to steer minorities away from certain neighborhoods.

While this may not be as overt as it once was, it’s still happenings, because remember: most sundown towns weren’t just created through laws, but by practice.