Sundown Towns

The 100th anniversary of the Greenwood massacre got me to thinking about when my husband told me that his hometown of Monett, Missouri, was a “sundown” town. To be honest, I had never heard of the term before he mentioned it. Because two branches of his family settled in Monett before 1900, my husband knew of that designation, but not how it came to be. I’ve since discovered that the pre-eminent expert on how this happened is Murray Bishoff, the news editor for The Monett Times. Mr. Bishoff kindly shared with me some of his research and writing on the event that lead to this ignominious designation and I would like to share what I learned from him and other sources.

A “sundown town” is where a town is “all-white” on purpose. The first “sundown towns” began in 1890 and continued until the late 1960’s. [1] While the phrase evokes the sentiment that Blacks were not welcome after dark, the reality is that these towns barred Blacks from owning or renting property in the town. I was surprised to find that most “sundown towns” existed primarily outside of the traditional South.[2] As an example, James Loewen, a noted American sociologist, historian, and professor, has calculated that approximately 70% of all the towns in Illinois were sundown towns.[3]

Founded in 1887 by the St. Louis and San Francisco Railroad (“Frisco”), Monett, is physically situated in both Barry County and Lawrence County, in the south-west region of Ozarks, a “physiographic region” in portions of Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Kansas.[4] For census purposes, the population of Monett is enumerated in Barry County. In 1890, Monett’s total population was 1,699.[5] However, because it was too small a town to be included in the census statistics defining the population by race it is not precisely known how many Blacks actually lived in Monett at the time.[6] One estimate puts the number of Blacks by 1894 at less than 100.[7] The census recorded ninety-seven Blacks living in Barry County in 1890. By 1900, there were only nine. Monett had grown to a total population of 3,547 by 1900, but there were no blacks living there.[8]The lack of a Black population seems to be something Monett was initially proud of but which they soon stopped talking about and it became an open secret.[9] The investigative work of Mr. Bishoff in the mid-1990’s showed a light on this secret and how it came to be. 

The formation of a “sundown town” was a four-step process: first, an alleged “infraction” by an African American against a white; second, the lynching of a suspect; and third, the whole-sale expulsion of the Black population from the town; and, lastly, the official or unofficial designation of the town as “all-white.” In 1894, Monett followed this course which began a “chain of racial violence” across the Ozarks that amounted to nothing less than an ethnic cleansing.[10]

It began on the night of June 20, 1894, with the shooting of Robert Greenwood, a brakeman for the Frisco.[11] Greenwood and some other railroad men encountered a group of Black men in front of a saloon. What happened next is not clear, but it was determined that one of the Black men shot Greenwood and he died two days later. A manhunt ensued and a Black man by the name of Hulett Ulysses Hayden was taken into custody on June 28.[12] While on a train to Cassville (the county seat) the marshal, his deputy, and Hayden were besieged by a group of 50-100 armed men who forced the train to stop and lynched Hayden from a telegraph pole along the track. 

It was determined less than a week later that Hayden did not kill Greenwood.[13] No one was ever convicted of Hayden’s murder and he was buried in an unmarked grave in the Oakdale Cemetery in Monett. The town paid L. King $10 for the coffin, R. M. Hyde $5 for “hauling the body,” and James Pilant $5 for the burial.[14]

As Mr. Bishoff uncovered, “[t]he uprising that led to the death of Hulett Hayden was not over with the lynching. …[A]ll the African Americans in Monett were ordered by the railroad men to get out of the town.”[15] While there was no official town ordinance to this effect, the railroad men were able to impose their will on the community. It was reported by The Chicago Tribune that Monett had a sign on its main street reading “N****, don’t let the sun go down.”[16] Bishoff could find no evidence that this sign existed in Monett, but notes that the stories of such signs in Barry County are widespread. Of course, no signs were actually needed. The Butler (Missouri) Weekly Times had a not-so--amusing anecdote on the front page of the paper in July of 1905. It read: 

“A Joplin negro was making his will and requested of his lawyer that when he died he be buried in Monett. ‘In Monett,” exclaimed the lawyer, excitedly, ‘why do you want to be buried in Monett?’ ‘Well, it’s like this,’ said the negro, ‘when the devil goes out looking for negroes, Monett’s the last place he’ll think of going, and that’s why.’”[17]

Race relations in Monett continued to be fraught after 1894. Because Monett was a Frisco hub, Black railroad workers frequently found themselves there on an overnight assignment. In 1914, the “problem” of finding accommodations for Black employees had been a “vexatious” one because Blacks “did not desire to move their families here.”[18] The Frisco, in conjunction with the railroad’s Y.M.C.A. devised to build accommodations near the machine shops to accommodate about twenty people. The Monett Times opined: “We feel sure that this solution of the negro question will meet with general approval.”[19]

In 1991, when Mr. Bishoff first wrote about the ethnic cleansing in Monett he was greeted with a lot of hostility.[20] The townspeople wanted to keep it hidden and were “furious” that this ugly chapter in the town’s history was being brought back up.[21] Today, the sun is setting on the many “sundown” towns across America, even Monett.[22] Monett resident, Grace Whitlock-Vega, has organized a fundraiser to erect a monument in memory of Hughlett Ulysses Hayden. If you care to donate, here is the link: https://gofund.me/c8ec90f6.

Many thanks to Murray Bishoff for the wealth of information he and The Monett Times provided. If you want to learn more about “sundown” towns or check to see if your hometown was one, James Loewen has a terrific website devoted to this: https://sundown.tougaloo.edu/sundowntowns.php.

[1] James W. Loewen, Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism, (New York: The New Press, 2005), 4.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid. Wikipedia.org, “James W. Loewen,” rev. 13:12, 16 May 2021.

[4] Wikipedia.org, “Ozarks,” rev. 02:23, 31 May 2021.

[5] Bureau of the Census, Department of Commerce and Labor, Eleventh Census of the United States taken in the year 1890, “Table 5.- Population of States and Territories by Minor Civil Divisions: 1880 and 1890: Missouri,” 211; digital image, United States Census Bureau (ftp://ftp2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1890/volume-1/1890a_v1-10.pdf : accessed 4 June 2021). Monett was described as being part of Capp Creek and King Prairie townships.

[6] Bureau of the Census, Department of Commerce and Labor, Thirteenth Census of the United States taken in the year 1910, “Statistics for Missouri, Table 1. – Population of Minor Civil Divisions: 1910, 1900, and 1890,” 574; digital image, United States Census Bureau (https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1910/abstract/supplement-mo.pdf : accessed 3 June 2021).

[7] Walter Rucker and James Nathaniel Upton, editors, Encyclopedia of American Race Riots, Vol. 2, N-Z and Primary Documents, “Southwest Missouri Riots (1894-1906)” (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2007), 604.

[8] Bureau of the Census, Department of Commerce and Labor, Twelfth Census of the United States taken in the year 1900, “Table 24. – Native and Foreign Born and White and Colored Population, Classified by Sex , for Places having 2,500 inhabitants or more: 1900,” 664; digital image, United States Census Bureau (https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1900/volume-1/volume-1-p11.pdf  : accessed 3 June 2021).

[9] The latest reference I can locate to Monett having no Black residents is 1932-34.   Monett Commercial Club, official stationary, 1932-34; digital image, Memorabilia of Missouri (https://sites.rootsweb.com/~cappscreek/images/stationary2.jpg : accessed 7 June 2021).

[10] Loewen, Sundown Towns, 95-96. 1894 – Monett; 1901 Pierce City, MO; 1903 Joplin, MO; 1906 Springfield, MO and Harrison, AR. 

[11] This synopsis of the events is based on Mr. Bishoff’s work and his article, “Monett’s Darkest Hour: The Lynching of June 28, 1894,” The Monett (Missouri) Times, 27 and 28 June 1994, provided by Mr. Bishoff to me by email 31 May 2021. 

[12] “Colored Murderer Arrested,” The Atchison (Kansas) Daily Globe, 29 June 1894, p. 1, col. 3.

[13] “Hung to a Telegraph Pole,” The Cassville (Missouri) Republican, 5 July 1894, p. 1, col. 6.

[14] “County Court Proceeding,” The Cassville (Missouri) Republican, 16 August 1894, p. 5, col. 6.

[15] Bishoff email to Baty.

[16] “Negros Killed or Driven Away,” The Chicago Tribune, 21 August 1901, p. 1, col. 5.

[17] [No title], The Butler (Missouri) Weekly Times, 27 July 1905, p. 1, col. 1.

[18] “The Negro Question Nearly Settled,” The Monett (Missouri) Times, 26 June 1914, p. 5, col. 3.

[19] Ibid.

[20] Elliot Jaspin, Buried in the Bitter Waters: The Hidden History of Racial Cleansing in America (New York: Basic Books, 2007), 83.

[21] Ibid.

[22] While Monett’s Black population is currently zero, ten years ago 100 Blacks lived there. “Quick Facts, Monett city, Missouri – Population estimates, July 1, 2019,” United States Census Bureau (https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/monettcitymissouri : accessed 4 June 2021). “Monett – Demographics,” Data Commons (https://datacommons.org/place/geoId/2949196?topic=Demographics : accessed 4 June 2021). This dramatic drop in Black population occurred between 2011 and 2014. I’m guessing there is a story there.

“‘The Magnet City,’ of the Ozarks is our home and we like it. Good climate, good schools, good government, good roads, good water and 6000 good citizens - all white.”

Monett Commercial Club, official stationary, 1932-34; digital image, Memorabilia of Missouri (https://sites.rootsweb.com/~cappscreek/images/stationary2.jpg : accessed 7 June 2021).