"When the sun goes down in a sundown town
Be wise and beware.
When the sun goes down in a sundown town
Make sure you are scarce.
When the sun goes down in a sundown town
Only the foolhardy stay there."
This menacing poem, quoted at the beginning of L. S. Stratton's Sundown Girls, lets readers (and parents and teachers of readers) know that the book, although fiction, is rooted in dark history, rattling the bones of the inconvenient skeletons in America's closet.
I was well into adulthood when I first learned about sundown towns. In the not so distant past they were legion, and not just in the South--unless you consider Illinois and Oregon to be below the Mason Dixon Line. Stratton based the history of the fictional Sparksburg, Virginia on real life examples.
After the Civil War the whites in many integrated towns began to strongly resent the new found prosperity of some of the Black residents. They drove the Blacks out by threatening them, burning their homes and businesses, and even resorting to murder. The Wilmington (North Carolina) Massacre of 1898 and the Tulsa (Oklahoma) Massacre of 1921 are particularly egregious examples. Often the town leaders and police forces turned a blind eye to, encouraged, or participated in the lawlessness rather than trying to subdue it.
Not all those towns became sundown towns. The ones that did enacted legislation that specifically forbid Blacks from being in the town after sundown. That way the whites could exploit them as domestic and agricultural laborers without accepting them as neighbors. If unlucky Blacks were caught at night whites could dispose of them by any means they chose. Many Blacks disappeared, never to be seen again.
"'Sorry,' Dawn said with a small smile, 'didn't mean to startle you, honey, but you didn't hear me when I was calling you.'
No, you weren't calling me, Naomi thought, because that's not my name."
When Naomi was fifteen she was torn from her mother (who was taken away by the police) and returned to the family she'd been kidnapped from as a baby: Dawn (mother), Andre (father), and Maya and Blake (siblings). So she's living with strangers who share a long, intimate history. Dawn and Andre panic any time they can't find Camryn (her birth name), fearful of losing her again. Maya seems to wish she'd never returned.
To restore harmony the family is taking a three week vacation at an isolated cabin in the Shenandoah Valley with a relentless list of planned activities. But it's not going to be the bonding panacea the parents anticipate. Naomi has misgivings about the place. On the way to the cabin a black truck follows the family and almost runs them off the road. At the cabin she starts smelling a sickening stench like rotting flesh that the rest of the family is oblivious to. And there's the silent little nightgown wearing girl who appears only to her, seeming to want something of her.
Naomi makes friends with Elly, a girl her age who is vacationing with her two moms at a nearby cabin. She's seen a stranger lurking in the woods near the cabins at night. When Elly's moms die suddenly in a car accident Elly is nowhere to be found.
When her family had first driven into town Naomi had seen a missing poster for a teen named Amber. Thinking maybe both girls had been kidnapped by the same person and are still alive, she starts her own investigation. Local law enforcement warns her that there will be consequences if she doesn't cease, desist, and leave the detective work to the professionals. Dawn and Andre do everything in their power to stop her. She knows she's putting herself in real danger...
...but if there's any chance of finding Elly before it's too late she'll do whatever it takes.
Books like Sundown Girls are so necessary now. Book banners and curriculum white washers are trying so hard to remove evidence that could tarnish beliefs in American and white supremecy. We are so in danger of returning to the educational ignorance of my childhood. We can't let that happen.
On a purrrsonal note, my day had a purrrfect start. When I woke up Tobago was contentedly snuggling with me. When I was doing my half hour on my exercise bike my prisms caught the light and I was surrounded by dancing 🌈s. Tobago snuggled on the sofa with me while I read my email newsletters. And I read that Kimberly Crenshaw (who came up with the theory of intersectionality) has gotten her memoir published. I'll review it as soon as I can get my hands on it. Campus is in bloom with so many gorgeous flowers. Who can ask for anything more?
A great big shout out goes out to Crenshaw for her brilliant scholarship, Stratton for her eye opening narrative, and precious Tobago for being such a sweet snuggle buddy.
Jules Hathaway
