Chinese Miners Faced Racism, Violence As Mountain West Sundown Towns But for black Americans, the Mother Roads lonely expanses were rife with danger. Roper Lake State Park is located 6 miles south of Safford in Graham County in southeast Arizona and sits at the base of Mt. In the early 20th century, Bisbee was a mining town . It was one of the nations most devastating acts of terrorism against African Americans. There were 294 households, out of which 42.2% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 46.3% were married couples living together, 17.7% had a female householder with no husband present, and 29.6% were non-families. It serves as an excellent base from which to explore the surrounding countryside for several days. In Nevada, Sundown Town History Has Cultural Impacts For Washoe - KUNC While you might not find big-town amenities here, you will discover. The term "sundown town" goes back to segregation-era signs that said "colored people" had to leave by sundown. DUNCAN, Ariz. - Evacuation orders for a small eastern Arizona town have been lifted after heavy rain overflowed the Gila River, spilling water into portions of the area. I wanted to share the real story of Route 66its promise of freedom and its failure to live up to that promise. I may be the only black woman to have written a travel guide about Route 66. Then, a battered wooden sign for the Stage Stop Mini Mart & Liquor Store advertises gas priced a good 50 cents less per gallon than city prices. [14] Also pictured is the antique town clock located in Spezia Square Park and the 1950 Chevrolet 6400 2-ton fire truck once used in Duncan. (1911). Males had a median income of $32,232 versus $18,333 for females. To accommodate the new Arizona and New Mexico Railroad, the people of Purdy moved their settlement to the south bank of the river and renamed it Duncan, after Duncan Smith, the managing director of the Arizona Copper Company. Ive estimated that nearly 75 percent of Green Book sites have been demolished or radically modified, and the majority that remain have fallen into disrepair, so its crucial to preserve whatever sites are left. There are 10 cities in Arizona that stand out for their crime rates, so let's take a look at them and see which cities you should avoid. Freeport-McMoRan is the largest area employer. Duncan is a small farming town 5 miles west of the New Mexico border on Hwy 70 (Old West Highway). into the 1960s, when the new Interstate 10 to the south diverted commercial traffic, contributing to a rising trucking industry. Sundown Town History Coalition for an Anti-Racist Glendale At that time, the town was located on the north bank of the Gila. He said the woman sitting next to him (his wife) was his employers maid, and he was taking her and her son (Ron) home. ullstein bild/Getty Images The Chicago suburb of Cicero was one of the most infamous sundown towns to ever exist in Illinois. Graham. Victor H. Green, a black postal worker from Harlem, New York, published his guide from 1936 until 1966. The images on this website are copyrighted. A small donation would help us keep this available to all. Duncan might attract people who now realize they can work remotely from anywhere. During a grisly lynching on Easter weekend, a vigilante white mob dragged Horace Duncan and Fred Coker to the town square, hanged them, burned their bodies while thousands watched, and then distributed their body parts among the crowd as keepsakes. Location of Duncan in Greenlee County, Arizona, List of historic properties in Duncan, Arizona. [3] Duncan is in the Gila River valley, four miles (6 km) west of the Arizona- New Mexico border. (Today, nothing remains of Grahams, except a tourist cabin that an area law firm uses as its storage shed.). The county seat is Globe. Horses and cattle were owned by a lot of people in Compton. Duncan is a small farming town 5 miles west of the New Mexico border on Hwy 70 (Old West Highway). For black Americans who hit the road with a copy of the Green Book, a guide expressly created to keep them safe in a wildly perilous landscape, they surely already understood that the hopeful Mark Twain quote gracing almost every Green Book coverTravel is fatal to prejudicewas purely aspirational. Clinton followed what he called the Cafeteria Golden Rule. His menu read, Pay What You Wish and Dine Free Unless Delighted.. [12][8][9][13], The Duncan Pride Society was established on March 8, 2001. It was not uncommon for Black motorists passing through these communities to be followed by police or local residents to the city limits. The Day family ran the ranch for many years until selling it; it continues to be run as a ranch. [4] U.S. Route 70 passes through downtown, leading west 39 miles (63km) to Safford, Arizona, and southeast 35 miles (56km) to Lordsburg, New Mexico, and Interstate 10. Above, a "colored" sign over a drinking fountain in Halifax, North Carolina, in 1938. Safford, Arizona gets 10 inches of rain, on average, per year. Call 911 for emergencies, Greenlee County Sheriff's Department The Spanish-Pueblo Revival style of the building features a conference room with seven 20-foot murals painted by a Zuni artist. A rustic service station with a genuinely old truck would invite them to clamber over it until their mothers call them home to supper. It looks like a movie set. Many of the buildings along Route 66 are physical evidence of racial discrimination, providing a rich opportunity to reexamine Americas story of segregation, black migration, and the rise of the black leisure class. Greenlee County Sheriff's Department Office: (928) 865-4149 Emergency: 911 In May 2022, an image went viral that supposedly showed a sign in a modern-day "sundown town" that read "whites only within city limits after dark." While the assertion that sundown towns still . The methods for enforcing such racial segregation ranged . Office: (928) 865-4149Emergency: 911. People called it the Bible of black travel and AAA for blacks, but it was so much more. But though that message went out to all Americans, it was really meant only for white Americans. Sept. 27, 2020. The Simpson Hotel has a wooden toy pony in a first-floor window. Safford is a mining town in Eastern Arizona. They named their home Duncan, after Duncan Smith, the companys managing director. In extreme cases, hostility toward African Americans resulted in extrajudicial killing. As a professional camping teacher I can tell you a lot of important things you should know for your nextcamping trip. Greenwood was an unusually vibrant community of successful black entrepreneurs, doctors, and lawyers. (Excluding Federal Holidays) Everyone here is good neighbors, customers and when I go home, I rest so good, she almost sings. Almost every level acre is under cultivation, thickets of cottonwood trees shelter old farmhouses and ranches, and cattle and horses seem to outnumber people. My name is George Stark and I am 42 years old. Come and enjoy our town, whether for an evening or a lifetime. Well, first that Flagstaff doesn't make any of the pre-World War II editions. These were the only listings for Kingman, but considering its status as a former sundown town, they were a blessing. But when a site is nurtured, like Cliftons, or commemorated, like the Threatt Filling Station, it can be an important connection to the past. I said, Mom, isnt slavery over?, I said, Why are all of these black men in chains working in a field?. Not when a struggle for social mobility continues to take a debilitating toll on black Americans. Some faced actual instances of violence or were arrested by local police, according to Farley. The railroad stop in Duncan made the town a marketing center for farm produce and a shipping point for ore and cattle. Zinc and copper mines were established in the hills around Duncan. The existence of sundown towns has been recirculating on Black Twitter. [1][2][4][8][9], In 1845, Mexico severed its relations with the United States because of the annexation of Texas by the United States. The American Southwest is known for many thingsNative American reservations, hot weather, and absolutely . In a country that desperately, fitfully, tries to be color-blind, even the first black president has not been able to stop the bleeding, let alone heal the old and deep wounds of white supremacy and systemic racism. Regulars look up and neutrally recognize were not from these parts, then mildly resume their conversation. The Purdy post office was relocated to the new location of Purdy and thus the settlement was renamed Duncan. But, after a young black man was wrongfully accused of assaulting a white woman, an angry lynch mob broke out. Peanuts Tire & Lube has a natty, smiling peanut waving from the painted brick edifice. And, although its no longer open to the public, the building still stands. Sundown towns once drove out people of color or prohibited them from living within city limits. History and Social Justice Website Copyright 2023, Using Lies My Teacher Told Me and Teaching What Really Happened, Resources for Teaching with Lies My Teacher Told Me, Teachers Corner: Teaching with Lies My Teacher Told Me, Contact Jim Loewen to Speak to Your Group, Causing Change With Lies My Teacher Told Me, Works Inspired or Influenced by Lies My Teacher Told Me, Useful Quotations about History and Social Justice, Native American Issues, Including the Explorers, Teaching Slavery, the Civil War, and Reconstruction, Civil Rights Movement to Modern Times: c. 1945 Now, Alphabetical Map of Sundown Towns by State, How to Research and Teach About Sundown Towns, Using Research Information to Help a Sundown Town Overcome Its Past, Loewens Work on Standardized Testing Used by Others, Embarrassing Questions about Standardized Tests. Location of Duncan in Greenlee County, Arizona, Last edited on 10 February 2023, at 23:59, "Geographic Identifiers: 2010 Demographic Profile Data (G001): Duncan town, Arizona", "US Gazetteer files: 2010, 2000, and 1990", National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Duncan,_Arizona&oldid=1138676476, Source: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, This page was last edited on 10 February 2023, at 23:59. Report to the President: Japanese-American Internment Sites Preservation. Forego a bottle of soda and donate its cost to us for the information you just learned, and feel good about helping to make it available to everyone. Whats the lightest weight backpacking gear youve used? Of course Route 66 wasnt any more racist than any other road in America at the time. If it does, I hope they appreciate it. . Lonesome Dove Mercantile - built in 1860 and located in 404 North Ave. Saint Mary's Catholic Church - built in 1936 and located in 111 3rd Street. I keep waiting for the present to swing a fist through the illusion. The per capita income for the town was $13,642. Between the 1890s and the 1940s, Sundown Towns became a popular trend in Northern states. The first time we visited Duncan we were on a 3-day road trip that included Clifton & Morenci as well as Black Hills Back Country Byway. Acreage is also planted to kenaf, an alternative fiber for making paper, and vernonia, an oilseed. The river water began spilling into Duncan early Monday . Sundown towns - The Weekly Challenger Wildlife viewing is good year-round but birding is best during the spring and fall migrations or the summer nesting season. And in 2020, a group called the Defund San Antonio Police Department Coalition issued a travel warning for San Antonio, labeling the city as a sundown town. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); This site was created by Matt Cheney, revised by OddBird, copyrighted by James W. Loewen and heirs (Nick Loewen), and is maintained by Phil Huckelberry and Stephen Berrey. With the rail, settlement of the fertile, easily irrigated valley boomed. ranching town for several decades, and its downtown slowly disintegrated. Encyclopdia Britannica (11th ed.). So when the United States promotes freedom and democracy, fights for those values abroad, and then fails to abide by them at home, the hypocrisy feels cruel. Surrounding smaller towns such as Franklin and York in Arizona and Virden, New Mexico, use Duncan public works and public schools. One popular safety precaution? To avoid the humiliation of being turned away, they often traveled with portable toilets, bedding, gas cans, and ice coolers. In Safford, the summers are sweltering and partly cloudy and the winters are cold, dry, and mostly clear. Sundown Towns by State - History and Social Justice It is located behind the town's fire department and across the street from Minden Park. According to the United States Census Bureau, the town of Duncan has a total area of 2.2 square miles (5.6km2), all of it land.[2]. After just one Black family moved into an apartment there in 1951, a mob of 4,000 white people attacked the entire building. Do you find this information helpful? During the Red Summer of 1919, white mobs repeatedly targeted Black World War I veterans and servicemen. Whats it like to be woken up by a bear while camping? You might get some looks, but Arizona is probably the most laid back state, so it's not prudent to be rude to people out here based on color. As I paged through all the kitschy advertising of postwar suburban white families in Airstream Trailers and chrome-finned Chevys getting their kicks at campy Americana landmarks, I wondered: Where are the black people? Mission Garden: Friends of Tucson's Birthplace, 2010 - 2023 Southern Arizona Guide, LLC, Teenagers: Things to do in Tucson with Older Kids, Bird Walks at the Sierra Vista Environmental Operations Park, Inspired by Plants: The Art and Science of the Campus Arboretum Florilegium, Guided Bird Walk at Patagonia Lake State Park, Cultivating Colors Colored Pencil Society, Pueblos de Maz Processing corn through nixtamalization, Childrens Museum Oro Valley at Tohono Chul Park, Gaslight Music Hall Summer Theatre Kids Camp, Artful Gardens: Tucson Park Exhibits & Garden Art. Duncan is a town in Greenlee County, Arizona, United States. [2] In 2018 the estimated population was 789.[3]. His Green Book featured barbershops, beauty salons, tailors, department stores, taverns, gas stations, garages, and even real-estate offices that were willing to serve black people.
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