The Legacy of Northern Racial Regimes: Sundown Towns and Racialized Policing and Governance

• In Event: 30420 - Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 16: Race, Neighborhoods, Institutions

Abstract

Prior scholarship shows that historical racial regimes have long-lasting impacts on racial inequalities generations after their dissolution. The mechanisms linking historical racial regimes and contemporary racial inequalities, however, have not received sufficient scholarly attention. In this paper, we advance work on the association of racial regimes from the early and mid 20th century with contemporary racial inequalities by exploring recently released data on the location of over 2000 sundown towns and incorporating scholarship on policing and local governance as a modern racial regime. Specifically, we map the trajectories of sundown towns post-1970 to make clear whether or not the macro-level segregation pattern of sundown towns kept them predominantly white or that sundown towns saw substantial racial turnover after the Civil Rights Movement. Second, the paper considers mechanisms driving contemporary racial inequalities, specifically by exploring whether or not sundown towns exhibit distinct local rates of aggressive racialized policing and/or the use of fines and fees as a form of extractive governmental funding.

Authors

• Rory Kramer, Villanova University

• Taylor Brendan Alarcon, Columbia University

• Jonathan Ben-Menachem, Columbia University