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James W. Loewen (1942-2021)

We mourn the loss of our friend and colleague and remain committed to the work he began.

East Lansing

Michigan

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?
Probable
Was there an ordinance?
Don't Know
Sign?
Don’t Know
Year of Greatest Interest
Still Sundown?
Don’t Know

Census Information

The available census data from 1860 to the present
Total White Black Asian Native Hispanic Other BHshld
1860
1870
1880
1890
1900
1910
1920
1930
1940
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
2010
2020

Method of Exclusion

  • Unknown

Main Ethnic Group(s)

  • Unknown

Group(s) Excluded

  • Black

Comments

Malcolm X rights in his autobiography that in the
1930s “Negroes weren’t allowed after dark in East Lansing proper.” When his father purchased a house in a white part of town, the family was burned out. When the Littles moved to the outskirts of East Lansing, whites “harassed us so much that we had to move again, this time two miles out of town.”

8/2014 email from a longtime resident: “i lived in east lansing from 1952-1970 and never knew about this. no signs, no talk, maybe 5 blacks in el high school, no black teachers. lots and lots of blacks in msu. a few in apartments on my paper route early ’60’s. john.”

7/2013 email: “East Lansing was not only all-white but practially all-Protestant. At the time the city was organized, People’s Church (interdenominational church but under Congregationalist auspices) was also created. It was the only church in the city for decades. The city’s first zoning code, in 1926, was expressly intended to exclude other religious organizations.
Research in the city council minutes has not turned up any explicit sundown ordinance. However, the few black students at Michigan State College (later MSU) were not allowed to live on campus or nearby; they had to commute from Lansing.
As far as I know, no African-Americans or Jews lived in the city until the 1960s.”