Lovecraft Country and “Sundown Towns”

In his chapter “Vanilla Cities and Their Chocolate Suburbs,” Chang uses the work of Critical Race Theorists to explain how the re-segregation of cities happened not just on its own, but with the deliberate intervention of local and city governments around the country. As Chang says, “The American metropolitan area had been designed with the preservation of whiteness in mind” (73) (my empasis).

Through redlining, local noise ordinances, and no fault evictions, white community boards and legislators gradually reinstated the effects of segregation. It was a form of “organized abandonment,” as Ruth Wilson Gilmore said in her talk at CUNY the other night.

In addition to this legislative and municipal “design,” though, was a whole host of extra-legal customs and measures that would assure that segregation remained if not the law of the land, then certainly the practice.

On page 73, Chang describes Ferguson, Missouri, which was to become a flashpoint for race relations in the 21st Cent., as follows: “Ferguson, Missouri — the tiny north St. Louis County suburb of 21,000 — is one of those invisible places to which many of the displaced went. Its story was not unlike many other colorized suburbs. It had once been a ‘sundown town’ where blacks were not allowed after dark.”

For those of you who have been watching Lovecraft Country on HBO (developed by Misha Green and Executive Producer Jordan Peele), there is a scene in episode 1, where “sundown towns” are an important part of the plot. The three main characters, Atticus, Leti, and George set off on a cross country road trip to find Atticus’ father. The trio arrives in what they learn to be a “sundown town” just before sundown. In a frightening scene of racial realism that ends in a scene of horror-story gore, the three manage to escape the clutches of both white supremacy and Lovecraftian nightmare, or most of them do...