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?
- Probable
- Was there an ordinance?
- Don't Know
- Sign?
- Yes, Photo or Written Evidence
- Year of Greatest Interest
- Still Sundown?
- Surely Not
Census Information
| Total | White | Black | Asian | Native | Hispanic | Other | BHshld | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1860 | 3055 | 0 | ||||||
| 1870 | 5168 | 5 | ||||||
| 1880 | 6367 | 6 | ||||||
| 1890 | 7710 | 9 | ||||||
| 1900 | 11786 | 3 | ||||||
| 1910 | 13027 | 11 | ||||||
| 1920 | 17563 | 7 | ||||||
| 1930 | 22963 | 2 | ||||||
| 1940 | 24404 | 1 | ||||||
| 1950 | 27598 | 8 | ||||||
| 1960 | 32275 | 13 | ||||||
| 1970 | 33430 | 2 | ||||||
| 1980 | 32547 | 51 | ||||||
| 1990 | 32520 | 71 | ||||||
| 2000 | ||||||||
| 2010 | 33736 | 513 | ||||||
| 2020 |
Method of Exclusion
- Unknown
Main Ethnic Group(s)
- Unknown
Group(s) Excluded
- Black
Comments
Email 1/2008
I was born and raised in Manitowoc, I remember when I was growing up that I would meet a Negro gentleman on the bus. When I asked my mother where he lived, she said she didn’t know. Colored people weren’t allowed to stay in town overnight.
I’m not sure I was here when the first family moved in. If I was,it must have been very quiet. The first Negro families that I became aware of in Manitowoc were lower socio-economic level, but we now have doctors, an assistant fire chief, nurses, etc., and there don’t seem to be any problems, at least not publicly. Manitowoc has become a very diversified community, given that our population is only app 35,000 people. We have always had a small population of Mexican itinerant workers, not many of them work on the local dairy farms. We also have a fairly large population of Vietnamese, Laotian, and Hmong, all of whom seem to be assimilating fairly well into the community. Some individuals better than others, which could be said about
any immigrant population.
***
Testimony of a former resident: “Manitowoc WI was such a town. When I lived there in 1962-64 there were such signs on the main roads in and out of town. I worked at a stable after school. When an African American man who drove a horse van came through town and needed a place to stay the owner of the stable Larry Bowlin put him up and the ate brats, drank beer, and played poker. Larry told us kids not to tell, that it would be very dangerous for his friend if he were caught.
I didn’t live in Manitowoc long –went to junior high there for 2 years. The sign fascinated me because my family moved to WI from Chattanooga, Tennessee. There, in a typical southern way, segregation existed but white black involvement was nevertheless constant in its spheres and the idea of making African Americans leave at sunset was bizarre. The folks in Manitowoc were so convinced all southerners were backward that they tried to put me in a lower school and kids asked if we wore shoes at home. (we said Never!) They also used the N word which caused me to ask my mother if they were all “trashy” or just some.
The signs were worded approx: NIGGER: Don’t let the sun go down on you in our town! I Think the words were in italics and painted across a picture of a green hill with the sun setting halfway behind it.”
Testimony of a WI resident:
“Manitowoc? Could be. When a good friend of mine was growing up the 1950s and 1960s there was dinner table discussion of a proposed city ordinance stating that African Americans could not stay overnight in the city.”
Testimony of former resident:
“As near as I can recall, this came up in a conversation between my father and his brothers in the mid 1950s (I was about 10 at the time). That group was pretty racist, sexist, anti Semitic and a bunch of other “ists.” I never checked if there was an ordinance, in part because their conversations were often a lot of bullshit. Still, given the tenor of that part of Manitowoc society in which I grew up, I suspect there may have been something there.”
Caller to WI Public Radio show, October 13, 2005, grew up in Manitowoc, went to the County Fair around 1960, and saw a school bus full of black men, looking out the windows, etc. She asked her mother why this bus was full of black men and where they were going. “They work here, but they have to spend the night at the jail.” Why? “So they won’t get beat up.”
Manitowoc has now joined the Inclusive Communities Partners program of the Natl. League of Cities.