Basic Information
- Type of Place
- Independent City or Town
- Metro Area
- Politics c. 1860?
- 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
- Still Sundown?
- Probably Not, Although Still Very Few Black People
Census Information
| Total | White | Black | Asian | Native | Hispanic | Other | BHshld | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1860 | ||||||||
| 1870 | ||||||||
| 1880 | ||||||||
| 1890 | ||||||||
| 1900 | ||||||||
| 1910 | 2675 | 5 | ||||||
| 1920 | 7201 | 2 | ||||||
| 1930 | 10544 | 10544 | -- | |||||
| 1940 | ||||||||
| 1950 | 7848 | 1 | ||||||
| 1960 | ||||||||
| 1970 | ||||||||
| 1980 | ||||||||
| 1990 | 7216 | |||||||
| 2000 | 6880 | 6792 | 20* | 1 | ||||
| 2010 | 6976 | 56 | 3 | |||||
| 2020 |
Method of Exclusion
- Violence Towards Newcomers
- Private Bad Behavior
- Reputation
Main Ethnic Group(s)
Group(s) Excluded
- Black
Comments
Benton had a KKK rally in late 1990s. Their basketball team shouted at Carbondale’s black players. Benton students put graffiti on Carbondale’s bus. (Carbondale student, early 2000s)
“Let’s see, my son is twelve, so about fifteen years ago it was, a black butcher worked in Benton,” and moved there, “and now I don’t know this for sure, but it was said they burned him out.” (Taken in 2001 from a nearby resident)
In 1992, the one black student in Benton HS, a junior girl, accepted an invitation from a white football player to the junior/senior prom “and that was it. She was ostracized by the students.” She stuck it out for the rest of the school year and her family then moved. In about 1998, whites burned a cross on the lawn of an elderly resident of Benton because he had a black physical therapist from another town come to work on him in his home. (Taken in 2001 from a local teacher)
One Black visitor to the town reported harassment as recently as 2012.
*Although there were 20 Black residents in 2000, 17 of them were male, mostly between the ages of 18-44. Only two were under 18, and only one Black household was listed. This may be attributable to the residents of the Franklin County Jail.