Basic Information
- Type of Place
- Metro Area
- Politics c. 1860?
- Unions, Organized Labor?
Sundown Town Status
- Sundown Town in the Past?
- Was there an ordinance?
- Sign?
- Year of Greatest Interest
- Still Sundown?
Census Information
| 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
Main Ethnic Group(s)
Group(s) Excluded
Comments
August 2007
I lived in Justice from 1955-1974 (literally raised there). In that time, the population was entirely White. When a teen, I joined the volunteer fire department as a reserve firefighter (their term for a recruit/student), this in approximately 1968. The people there at the time regularly discussed that Blacks were not welcome in the town and made particular mention that none had better move in or their house would catch fire with no volunteers responding. The fire chief I don’t think was directly involved in the conversations, however, I did see him within hearing as they took place.
Additionally, I recall a Black family driving through our neighborhood when a house on the block was for sale. One of the neighbors immediately took a shotgun out on the porch and was cleaning it, stating to all within hearing that they had better be gone by dark. The Chief of Police was on patrol and pulled up in the street and watched carefully as the family drove out of the area, never saying anything about the gun. This would have been in the late 1950’s (1958 or 59, I was only 7 or 8, yet it is a fairly vivid memory). I asked my parents, but they deny having any recollection of the incident.
We did not see a Black family move into the village until the first large apartment complexes in about 1969, and I believe these were, at least in part, government subsidized.