Yes, exclusionary racism can still occur, but a town’s appearance on a historical sundown-town list does not prove that it is an active sundown town in 2026. A 2025 Scientific Data article by David Rigby and colleagues identifies 2,248 historical places with evidence of sundown-town practices. Those records establish, with varying confidence, that exclusion happened during an earlier period. They do not constitute a current-status finding.
To call a place active today, you need recent, place-specific evidence of exclusion after accounting for what happened historically, where the conduct occurred, how it operated, and whether it continued after major civil-rights changes. A low Black population, an online map pin, a local reputation, or an old ordinance is not enough by itself.
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What “sundown town” means
A sundown town is a place that restricted the residence or movement of Black people or other people of color, especially after dark. The mechanism could be formal, such as an ordinance, exclusionary zoning, police enforcement, or court action. It could also be informal: threats, harassment, violence, employment pressure, or coordinated intimidation that made staying after sunset unsafe.
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What the 2025 national dataset actually shows
Rigby and colleagues’ 2025 article, published in Scientific Data, presents a national dataset of historical sundown towns linked to contemporary spatial information. The database identifies 2,248 historical places with evidence of sundown-town histories. Of those, 1,821 are outside the former Confederate South, showing that the phenomenon was national rather than confined to the South.
| Finding | What it means |
|---|---|
| 2,248 places | Historical places with evidence of sundown-town histories in the 2025 dataset. |
| 1,821 places outside the former Confederate South | Most listed places were outside the region commonly associated with segregation-era history. |
| 607 contemporary counties outside the former Confederate South | These counties had no recorded history of lynching or enslavement in the comparison data cited by the authors but contained at least one historical sundown place. |
| 1940–2020 records | Linked Census and American Community Survey information covers these years; it provides context for population and geography, not proof of present-day exclusion. |
The authors describe the database as a living document built from prior historical work and crowdsourced investigation. New places may be added and classifications may be revised. A listing therefore tells you what the available historical evidence supports at the time of classification, not what residents or visitors will experience now.
Historical evidence versus current-status evidence
What can establish a historical sundown town
Strong historical evidence can show that a place operated as a sundown town during a defined period. Useful material includes:
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- Contemporaneous ordinances, zoning rules, police directives, or court records that restricted residence or movement.
- Newspaper reports documenting expulsions, threats, violence, arrests, or official enforcement.
- Oral histories that are corroborated by independent records, dates, named actors, or multiple unrelated witnesses.
- Business, employment, school, or municipal records showing coordinated exclusion.
- The underlying source notes for the dataset, including the period covered and why the place received its confidence label.
- Demographic patterns used cautiously and together with direct evidence, rather than treated as proof on their own.
The period matters. “A town enforced an exclusionary practice in 1935” is a precise historical claim. “The town is a sundown town” is ambiguous unless the speaker states whether the phrase refers to history or current conduct.
What a historical listing cannot establish
A historical entry does not prove that residents or officials still exclude nonwhite people after dark. It also cannot, by itself, establish that:
- an old ordinance remains in force or is being enforced;
- informal intimidation continues today;
- current police, landlords, employers, or businesses discriminate;
- a low present-day Black population resulted from an ongoing ban rather than many historical, economic, geographic, or personal factors; or
- every neighborhood within the modern Census geography has the same history.
The dataset links historical places to current geographies so scholars can study durable effects and change over time. That spatial link should not be mistaken for a finding that the modern municipality, county, or neighborhood is currently enforcing exclusion.
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How to test a claim that a town is active today
A responsible current-status claim requires a documented chain from a specific place to recent conduct. Use this sequence.
- Define the geography. Name the incorporated town, census-designated place, county, neighborhood, or road where the alleged conduct occurred. A historical place may not align with today’s municipal boundaries.
- State the time period. Record the date of each incident, policy, complaint, or observation. Evidence from the 1940s, 1960s, or 1980s cannot be presented as evidence of conduct in 2026 without proof that the conduct continued.
- Identify the mechanism. Distinguish a written rule from police action, landlord refusal, business treatment, threats, vandalism, organized harassment, or another informal practice.
- Check primary or contemporaneous records. Look for dated ordinances, agency records, court filings, complaint files, local reporting, or recorded testimony. Explain who created each record and whether it was made close to the event.
- Corroborate independently. One anecdote can justify further inquiry, but a strong claim normally needs additional witnesses, records, cases, or reporting that do not all repeat the same unsupported story.
- Separate current conduct from legacy effects. A town can retain segregated housing patterns, memorial disputes, unequal services, or a reputation shaped by past exclusion without operating a literal after-dark ban now.
- Report uncertainty explicitly. Say what is documented, what is alleged, what is unknown, and which confidence label applies to the historical designation. Do not upgrade “Possible” to “Surely” because a claim is widely repeated online.
How different kinds of evidence should be interpreted
| Evidence | What it may show | Why it is insufficient alone for a 2026 claim |
|---|---|---|
| Historical ordinance or police directive | Formal exclusion during the dates it was adopted and enforced. | The rule may have been repealed, invalidated, or abandoned; current enforcement must be demonstrated. |
| Newspaper or court record | A dated incident, official action, or legal dispute. | It establishes the reported event, not necessarily a continuing pattern or today’s conditions. |
| Oral history | How residents experienced threats, movement limits, or intimidation. | Memory can be incomplete; corroboration and precise dates strengthen the conclusion. |
| Low Black population | A demographic pattern worth explaining. | Population size has many causes and does not prove a ban, harassment, or intent. |
| Online map or list | A lead to historical sources and a place to investigate. | Maps often combine historical and modern geography and may not show source quality or dates. |
| Recent complaint or incident | Potential evidence of current discrimination, harassment, or intimidation. | One report requires verification; the conduct may be individual rather than town-wide, and the legal facts matter. |
Can a town be active without a sign or ordinance?
Yes. Sundown practices were often conventional rather than written. A pattern of threats, police stops, coordinated business refusal, landlord pressure, or violence could make nonwhite people leave before nightfall without a posted rule. The absence of a sign therefore does not disprove current exclusion.
It also does not prove it. A present-tense conclusion needs recent evidence tying the conduct to a place and showing a pattern, responsible actors, or a credible mechanism. Reports should identify dates, locations, witnesses, records, and whether authorities investigated or ignored the conduct.
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Are all-white towns automatically sundown towns?
No. A town’s racial composition is not a legal or historical verdict. Population patterns can reflect migration, housing costs, employment, geography, age structure, school choices, regional history, or individual preferences. The 2025 dataset itself treats demographic information as context rather than a substitute for direct evidence.
To connect demographics to sundown-town history, investigators should show how exclusion operated, when it operated, and what sources document it. To claim current activity, they must additionally show recent discriminatory conduct or an active policy. Without that chain, “all-white” is a description, not proof.
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The federal Fair Housing Act makes housing discrimination illegal in nearly all housing, including private housing, public housing, and federally funded housing. It prohibits discrimination based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status, or disability. The U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division enforces the Fair Housing Act and related civil-rights statutes and provides routes for reporting discrimination, harassment, and hate crimes.
Legal prohibition is an important change from an openly enforced sundown rule, but legality and reality are different questions. A law against discrimination does not prove that informal intimidation, discriminatory policing, unequal treatment, or harassment never occurs. Those are empirical questions requiring recent local evidence. A person who encounters conduct today should preserve messages, dates, names, locations, witnesses, and documents and consider reporting through the relevant housing or civil-rights channel.
How to compare two places without overstating the evidence
Comparisons are useful only when both places are measured on the same axes. For each place, record:
| Comparison axis | Questions to answer |
|---|---|
| Date and duration | When did the alleged practice begin, and when is the last documented incident or policy? |
| Formal versus informal mechanism | Was exclusion written into law, enforced by officials, or maintained through threats and custom? |
| Source quality and corroboration | Are there primary records, independent accounts, and identifiable dates and actors? |
| Historical confidence label | Is the place classified Surely, Probable, Possible, or Unlikely? |
| Geography | Does the evidence concern a town, a neighborhood, a county, or a larger area? |
| Evidence of change after 1968 | Do records show repeal, integration, later complaints, continuing intimidation, or no reliable information? |
This method prevents a well-documented historical case from being treated as identical to a rumor about a modern town. It also allows a place to have a serious historical legacy while acknowledging that current conditions may have changed.
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What can responsibly be said in 2026?
There is no authoritative national registry identified in the available sources that certifies which towns are active sundown towns in 2026. The strongest defensible statement is therefore qualified: historical sundown towns are real and extensively documented, and some places may still experience racial exclusion or intimidation, but current status must be established locally and recently.
When writing or speaking about a listed place, name the source and date, give its confidence label, identify the geography, and distinguish historical evidence from evidence after 1968. If no recent, place-specific documentation is available, say that the current status is unestablished rather than calling the town active.
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