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?
- Possible
- 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 | ||||||||
| 1920 | ||||||||
| 1930 | 9539 | 104 | ||||||
| 1940 | ||||||||
| 1950 | ||||||||
| 1960 | 25525 | 52 | ||||||
| 1970 | 26,170 | 18 | ||||||
| 1980 | ||||||||
| 1990 | ||||||||
| 2000 | 19,291 | 175 | ||||||
| 2010 | ||||||||
| 2020 |
Method of Exclusion
- Unknown
Main Ethnic Group(s)
- Unknown
Group(s) Excluded
- Black
Comments
Most of Birmingham’s black population in 1960 were female, indicating that they were live in domestic
workers.
“The Birmingham public schools are integrated,
although the high school that kids from Birmingham attend, Seaholm, only has a few black students. It was known for having neo nazis during the late 80s and
early 90s. The other high school, Groves, has several black people because kids from Southfield [a nearby
town] attend the school. I think that the majority of the wealthier people that want to try and keep
Birmingham white send their children to private
schools such as Detroit Country Day.”
-posted to the web, 2002
Feb. 2012 email from a longtime resident: “I grew up in the UP and a great portion of the population has rascist tendancies. You will almost never see a black (or Asian, or Arabic, etc) person outside of one of the larger college towns (Houghton/Hancock, Marquette, etc). People freely use racial slurs and are not welcoming of anyone who is not white.
This mentality is slowly (very, very slowly) changing as the older generations die and the younger, more culturally aware, people are coming into power. Unfortunately some of those younger people have inheirited their parents’ hateful attitude.”