Sociohistorical contexts of racial violence: sundown towns and the durability of racialized public space

Scholarly work on racial violence has illustrated the diverse effects of historical practices like slavery, lynching, and redlining upon contemporary racial inequalities. We extend this work by considering the durable legacy of sundown towns–an understudied package of legal and conventional practices restricting the mobility of Black communities. We argue that the racialized organization of public space that was produced via sundown practices is expressed today in racialized engagement with public space and test this using cell phone location data describing public park use across Missouri. Here, we find that racial disparities in park visitation are excebrated in former sundown town areas–with already disparate park vistiation rates between majority Black and majoirty White communities widening significantly when the destination park is within the bounds of a former sundown area. Overall, our findings illustrate the diverse and persistent ways that historical regimes of racial control shape even mundane behaviors in contemporary society.

Duke Scholars

Author Tyson Brown Sociology

Author Hedwig Eugenie Lee Sociology