
Sundown Towns – Remnants of Oklahoma’s Racism
I know this is one of my weirdest quirks, but when I watch anything historic on TV, my curiosity gets the best of me. Especially if it's about Oklahoma. I'll end up on Wikipedia to see where the story is going and to get a deeper backstory on the main characters.
I was recently watching a movie about pre-statehood Oklahoma - or really, it was about Texas, but there was enough action in "The Territory" that I got really curious about the Sooner State's original "Sundown Towns." AKA - places where African Americans weren't welcome after dark and were either faced with intimidation or violence if they weren't gone with the daylight.
I initially called shenanigans on it. There are several "Black Towns" in our history. Even though the tribes owned slaves themselves, Indian Territory was a safe haven for our displaced African American citizens.

I'll be honest with you, the subject has come up from time to time over the years. I've always thought of "Sundown Towns" as more of a Southern United States thing, more of a Texas thing mainly because Wikipedia only lists a handful of "Sundown" towns across the Sooner State, but other resources online paint a much broader picture.
As more of Oklahoma's forgotten history is rediscovered, Tougaloo College is keeping a running list of our state's sundown towns.
From the website:
In the 1870s and 80s, many African Americans fled the former Confederacy and settled in Oklahoma. But by the time Oklahoma attained statehood in 1907, Democrats were in control and towns went sundown all over the state.
Sundown Towns of Oklahoma
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