Sundown towns , also known as sunset towns or gray towns , were all- white municipalities or neighborhoods in the United States that practiced a form of segregation by enforcing restrictions excluding non-whites via some combination of discriminatory local laws, intimidation, and violence. The term came from signs posted that " colored people " had to leave town by sundown. The practice was not restricted to the southern states, as "(a)t least until the early 1960s...northern states could be nearly as inhospitable to black travelers as states like Alabama or Georgia." Discriminatory policies and actions distinguished sundown towns from towns that have no black residents for demographic reasons. Towns have been confirmed as sundown towns using newspaper articles, county histories, and Works Progress Administration files, corroborated by tax or U.S. Census records showing an absence of black people or sharp drop in the black population between two censuses.
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