Deans' Diversity Committee
7:30 pm Thursday
January 29
Wanamaker Hall

From the 1930s to the 1960s, hundreds of towns all over America had “sundown rules.” Sometimes written, sometimes posted, these curfews prevented African Americans from remaining in town past sundown, excluding them from living in the communities where they worked. Recent research uncovered firsthand testimony by long-time residents that Elsah once enforced sundown laws. James Loewen documents this phenomenon in his new book, Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism. Loewen, the author of nine books, has been a college professor and an expert witness in more than 50 civil rights cases.