Homer

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

Census Information

The available census data from 1860 to the present

	Total	White	Black	Asian	Native	Hispanic	Other	BHshld
1860
1870	767
1880	924
1890	917
1900	1080
1910	1086
1920	978
1930	918
1940	983
1950	1030		0
1960
1970	1354		0
1980	1279		0
1990	1264		1
2000	1200	1186	1
2010
2020

Method of Exclusion

Main Ethnic Group(s)

Group(s) Excluded

• Black

Comments

According to a long-time resident, “Homer had a vibrant African American community until about 1928 when Roy Gillespie moved his family to Urbana because of economic opportunity.” If one family’s move could end “a vibrant community,” then perhaps Homer was a sundown town. However, this same resident asserts forcefully: “The Gillespies have nothing but good memories of Homer and regretted moving because of the acceptance they found in the town.”

On the other hand, well-known is an incident often called a murder of an African American by a white antagonist in Homer on a date variously said to be in the late 1970s to the early 1990s. The above long-time resident calls it a “tragic accident” but others describe an encounter that seems a deliberate homicide. More research is needed.

Also needed: assessment of the “manuscript census” for 1860-1940 to ascertain the black population in those decades.