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?
- Don’t Know
Census Information
| Total | White | Black | Asian | Native | Hispanic | Other | BHshld | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1860 | ||||||||
| 1870 | ||||||||
| 1880 | ||||||||
| 1890 | ||||||||
| 1900 | ||||||||
| 1910 | ||||||||
| 1920 | ||||||||
| 1930 | ||||||||
| 1940 | ||||||||
| 1950 | ||||||||
| 1960 | ||||||||
| 1970 | ||||||||
| 1980 | ||||||||
| 1990 | 192 | 0 | ||||||
| 2000 | ||||||||
| 2010 | ||||||||
| 2020 |
Method of Exclusion
- Unknown
Main Ethnic Group(s)
- Unknown
Group(s) Excluded
- Black
Comments
Former South Carolina Resident re: Salem
1990, 192 total, 0 bl.
In Oconee Co., had a “sundown town” reputation in the 1980s. In general, I think one way to approach this would be to go back over the literature on racial violence and look for accounts of out migration in response.
Although I was not reading for this specifically, I am pretty sure that George Wright mentions a few cases of this in his _Racial Violence in Kentucky, 1865 1940_ and Terence Finnegan does also in his dissertation, “At the Hands of Parties Unknown,” which covers Mississippi and South Carolina. I wonder, also, if it would be useful to consider rural districts that may not have such clearly defined boundaries as a town does but that maintained an all white status nonetheless.
Former Seneca Resident re: Salem:
I am originally from Seneca, SC (located approximately 15 minutes from Salem). I grew up in Seneca and lived there till about 1997. As far back as I can remember, I’d always heard that Salem was a prejudice town and that black people were not allowed.
I mostly heard this from friends, other students in high school (I graduated from Seneca High School in 1993), and my parents may have mentioned it a few times. Seneca and surrounding towns (except Salem) had a good ratio of blacks to whites. I remember there being what seemed like half black and half white in my high school. A lot of the black folks that I went to school with believed Salem to be very prejudice and would never go there. They were fearful of what might happen if they went there. After I graduated I worked for a manufacturing company (at the time called Dynacast) and worked with a fellow that lived in Long Creek SC. He would always tell me about how Salem was not a place for black people. He even recalled there being a sign in Salem that made reference to “whites only” but had been torn down. Unfortunately I have not kept in contact with this person over the years.
Everyone around me that I associated with during that time seemed to have the same prespective about Salem (black or white). That was 6 to 7 years ago. I have not heard anything about Salem since I moved away from SC. I certainly hope that things have changed in Salem.