Sundown Towns
After a white supremacist mob intimidated Black schoolchildren on the banks of Lake Lanier in 1968, a WSB-TV reporter interviewed Cumming citizens about the incident. Among his questions: "Do you think Forsyth is a county for whites only?" Courtesy of Walter J. Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Collection, WSB-TV newsfilm collection. Note: this video contains language that some may find harmful.
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Forsyth County's reputation for being "all-white" was well-known around the state, as shown by this 1915 edition of the Daily Times-Enterprise from Thomasville.
Courtesy of Georgia Newspaper Project, Georgia Historic Newspapers.
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Some (but not all) sundown towns had signs that warned Black people to leave the area by nightfall. While there is no direct evidence of a sundown sign ever existing in Cumming or Forsyth County, some residents claim to have seen one.
Courtesy of Tubman African-American Museum.
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The front page of the Forsyth County News from February 4, 1987 documents violent intimidation against some Black people who entered the county following the Brotherhood March. Incidents like these were common in sundown towns around the country.
Courtesy of Georgia Newspaper Project, Georgia Historic Newspapers.
Sundown towns are white communities that intentionally prevent Black people (and sometimes other racial or ethnic groups) from residing there. Most sundown towns were created and enforced by mob violence. However, powerful whites established others by organizing “buyout campaigns” that made it too expensive for most Blacks to own homes and restrictive covenants that banned property sales or renting to Black people. In many cases, local whites even posted signs warning African Americans not to remain in town overnight. Oral evidence suggests that such a sign may have once stood in Forsyth County, though no documentation has been identified. James W. Loewen, a leading researcher on sundown towns, identified Forsyth County as one of the South’s most notorious examples of the phenomena.