ITEM OVERVIEW
In this major new expose, Loewen sets his sights on a shameful facet of 21st century American race relations: the thousands of towns and cites across the nation that excluded African Americans and other minority groups after sundown. This type of racial exclusion is often equated with the Jim Crow South, but, as Loewen's explosive and revelatory book demonstrates, the sundown town was, in fact, a Northern invention created by waves of lynching and riots in nearly every state north of the Mason-Dixon line. In vivid detail, and relying on extensive first-person testimony and local history, Loewen charts the violent birth and subsequent expansion of these all-white communities. He shows that in many areas, a majority of all towns kept out African Americans while many others barred Jews, Chinese Americans, and Native Americans as well. Loewen's work reveals that, despite the passing of civil rights legislation decades ago, many sundown towns and neighborhoods remain intentionally all-white to this day.
"James Loewen's new book will bring shock, then indignation, then wonderment as to what we can do to justify calling ourselves a decent society." --Howard Zinn
|
;)
