Home » New Hampshire » Keene

James W. Loewen (1942-2021)

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

Keene

New Hampshire

Basic Information

Type of Place
Independent City or Town
Metro Area
Politics c. 1860?
Don’t Know
Unions, Organized Labor?
Don’t Know

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

The available census data from 1860 to the present
Total White Black Asian Native Hispanic Other BHshld
1860
1870
1880
1890 7446 0
1900
1910
1920
1930
1940
1950
1960
1970 20467 25
1980
1990
2000 22563 89
2010
2020

Method of Exclusion

  • Unknown

Main Ethnic Group(s)

  • Unknown

Group(s) Excluded

  • Black

Comments

Message 01/07/2008:

I grew up in Hinsdale, less than a half an hour from Keene, right across the border from Brattleboro. Granted, the area is mainly white–that’s the truth. Why it has remained so? Not due to some implied racism, but due to a horrible housing market. How horrible? People with decent jobs living at camp grounds and out of vehicles because there’s such a lack of housing in the city and what is there is overpriced. I’d also like to say that in my tiny town near Keene, there was a black family and several of South Asian and Pacific Islander descent. Yes, only one black family at the time I moved- but I went to school with the kids, one was in my
French class, though much younger. And you know what? There was no racism. Classism in bucketloads–middle class kids picking on the poor ones. But no racism. (Perhaps if the “ethnic” kids had been poor, there might have been, but they were no worse or better off than most.) Or at least, if there was racism, I didn’t see it, and in a town that size, everyone knows everything about everyone else. Adults, too. There were Islander boys recently welcomed into the Fire Department. I know, I know- this is Hinsdale I speak of, closer to Brattleboro VT than Keene.

Now, the rest of my state, I am disgusted to admit you’re likely dead on about them. But Cheshire County–of which Keene is the County seat–is different. We’re the only democratic County in the very republican state, and are a rather different culture.

As for your question still sundown? Please- the ALAANA festival takes place less than a half hour from its borders, and many from the Elm City attend. That’s the Asian Latino African American Native American Festival. Even if my beloved Keene was once racist– and the possibility must be there, it’s not like you simply listed it based on census information, right? You surely must have done more research than that before casting any city in such a negative light! 🙂 They certainly aren’t now. I have my doubts as to whether it ever was, but I don’t know the detailed history you need for that!