Basic Information
- Type of Place
- Independent City or Town
- Metro Area
- Los Angeles/San Diego
- Politics c. 1860?
- Unions, Organized Labor?
Sundown Town Status
- Sundown Town in the Past?
- Probable
- Was there an ordinance?
- Don't Know
- Sign?
- Don’t Know
- Year of Greatest Interest
- Still Sundown?
- City Apologized, Changed Policies
Census Information
| Total | White | Black | Asian | Native | Hispanic | Other | BHshld | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1860 | ||||||||
| 1870 | ||||||||
| 1880 | ||||||||
| 1890 | ||||||||
| 1900 | ||||||||
| 1910 | ||||||||
| 1920 | ||||||||
| 1930 | 13730 | 35 | ||||||
| 1940 | 14356 | 210 | ||||||
| 1950 | ||||||||
| 1960 | 19706 | 7 | ||||||
| 1970 | ||||||||
| 1980 | ||||||||
| 1990 | ||||||||
| 2000 | 24292 | 14653 | 738 | 83 | 8821 | |||
| 2010 | ||||||||
| 2020 |
Method of Exclusion
- Police or Other Official Action
Main Ethnic Group(s)
- Unknown
Group(s) Excluded
- Black
- Hispanic
- Other
Comments
On February 2, 2022, the South Pasadena City Council passed a resolution acknowledging its past as a sundown town and proposing “Equity-developing activities.” Details are available here: https://www.coloradoboulevard.net/south-pasadena-condemns-its-history-as-a-sundown-town/ The City Council’s full resolution is here: https://www.southpasadenaca.gov/home/showpublisheddocument/28302/637805957085730000/
In the 1940s, civic leaders announced that
African, Mexican, and Asian Americans could work in
South Pasadena, but could not live there and could not
be in the town after dusk. The campaign received
heavy publicity and eventually failed.
“The city of S. Pasadena, CA, provides an
example of the extreme to which the trend toward
restictive racial and religious covenants can go. In
South Pasadena restrictive covenants, denying persons
not of the Caucasian race the right to live within its
municipal boundaries, are a matter of official policy.
The city administration has been charged with
promoting the program under which the entire city will
be blanketed with restrictive agreements.”
“The restrictive covenants specify that non-
Caucasians may reside in the city as servants,
caretakers, and in similar menial work. Non-
Caucasians may work in the city in other capacities,
but they must be outside its limits by nightfall.”
A USC professor, who is an American Indian and
of Mexican descent, purchased a house in South
Pasadena in 1964. The house came with a restrictive
convenant forbidding Mexicans, but the realtor did not
know that this professor’s family was originally from
Mexico.