Reply to I am baffled by the racism of the pre-1970s Deep South

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]You know what, OP.  People concentrate on the South,  but racism is and was everywhere in the US.  Check out the book Sundown Towns -- which is the history of towns in the United States in which African Americans were lynched or refused admission after sundown.  NINETY PERCENT of them were in the north.  Indiana, Illinois, Ohio.  Yup.  People like to believe that racism was a southern phenomenon, but most[b] Southern towns were integrated.[/b][/quote]

I agree that racism was and is everywhere, although I think the chances for enormous mobs converging to beat just a few dozen individuals while law enforcement looked away are greatly reduced from what they were. However, Southern towns were "integrated"? I politely disagree. Moreover, southern Illinois and Indiana are more culturally similar to the South.[/quote]

Southern towns had black and white residents.  They may not have mixed socially, they may not have eaten in the same restaurants, but both races lives in the town.  As opposed to the north, which posted signs that said "N---, the sun better not set on you in this town."  And I'm not talking about Southern Illinois and Southern Indiana.  Try Michigan, Wisconsin, Northern Illinois, Ohio, Connecticut, California.[/quote]

Yeah, but you said integrated. They had those awful signs in the South, too. Where is the ninety percent stat from?[/quote]

Actually, no.  Southern towns did not, for the most part, have "sundown signs" because blacks lived within the towns' limits and were employed there as well.  Texas probably the only exception.  That is one of the great myths of southern racism vs. northern "tolerance."  It is mindblowing to discover that most sundown signs were actually IN THE NORTH.

See the book and the website linked above.[/quote]

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