Illinois
Basic Information
- Type of Place
- Independent City or Town
- Metro Area
- Politics c. 1860?
- Strongly Democratic
- Unions, Organized Labor?
Sundown Town Status
- Sundown Town in the Past?
- Surely
- Was there an ordinance?
- Don't Know
- Sign?
- Don’t Know
- Year of Greatest Interest
- 1909
- Still Sundown?
- Probably
Census Information
| Total | White | Black | Asian | Native | Hispanic | Other | BHshld | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1860 | ||||||||
| 1870 | ||||||||
| 1880 | ||||||||
| 1890 | 358 | |||||||
| 1900 | 372 | |||||||
| 1910 | ||||||||
| 1920 | ||||||||
| 1930 | ||||||||
| 1940 | ||||||||
| 1950 | ||||||||
| 1960 | ||||||||
| 1970 | ||||||||
| 1980 | ||||||||
| 1990 | 125 | 0 | ||||||
| 2000 | 133 | 1 | ||||||
| 2010 | ||||||||
| 2020 |
Method of Exclusion
- Threat of Violence
Main Ethnic Group(s)
- Unknown
Group(s) Excluded
- Black
Comments
Confirmed, librarian of nearby town, February 7, 2004. [“Did Belknap keep out blacks?”] “Yes, they did. You were outta there by dark. My father-in-law told me that. If they weren’t out of town by sunset, they had to run for their lives.” He lived near Belknap.
When the mob [in 1909, lynching in Cairo] apprehended the sheriff, deputy, and Will James in Belknap, “People emerged from their doorways to hiss and spit at the bound prisoner as [sheriff] Davis, Deputy Fuller, and Froggie James were marched through the town of Belknap to the train depot.” — Philip Dray, At the Hands of Persons Unknown (NY: Random House Modern Library, 2003), 174.