California
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?
- Perhaps, Some Oral Evidence
- 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 | 3817 | 1 | ||||||
| 1940 | 5701 | 11 | ||||||
| 1950 | 4876 | 1 | ||||||
| 1960 | ||||||||
| 1970 | ||||||||
| 1980 | ||||||||
| 1990 | ||||||||
| 2000 | 10922 | 10038 | 29 | 115 | 146 | 717 | 181 | |
| 2010 | ||||||||
| 2020 |
Method of Exclusion
- Private Bad Behavior
Main Ethnic Group(s)
- Unknown
Group(s) Excluded
- Black
Comments
Approximately 200 years ago “Miwoks [local
Native tribe] were shot like squirrels if they were not
linked to a [white] family… More recently, Grass Valley
had a sign on highway that stood until the 1960’s. It
read something like, ‘if you are black, don’t let the sun
go down on your back.'”
-local resident, 2005
One resident reports that in the early 1970s, she
was walking with a white friend and saw two teenage
boys yell “get out of town, nigger” at a well-dressed
black man also walking.
A caller to a radio show reported seeing a
sundown sign in Grass Valley in 1975.