Basic Information
- Type of Place
- Independent City or Town
- Metro Area
- Politics c. 1860?
- Unions, Organized Labor?
Sundown Town Status
- Sundown Town in the Past?
- Surely
- Was there an ordinance?
- Don't Know
- Sign?
- Perhaps, Some Oral Evidence
- Year of Greatest Interest
- Still Sundown?
- Probably
Census Information
| Total | White | Black | Asian | Native | Hispanic | Other | BHshld | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1860 | ||||||||
| 1870 | ||||||||
| 1880 | ||||||||
| 1890 | ||||||||
| 1900 | ||||||||
| 1910 | ||||||||
| 1920 | ||||||||
| 1930 | ||||||||
| 1940 | 2136 | 2135 | 0 | 1 | ||||
| 1950 | 2136 | 0 | ||||||
| 1960 | ||||||||
| 1970 | 9738 | 9705 | 0 | 6 | 10 | 17 | ||
| 1980 | ||||||||
| 1990 | 10844 | 0 | ||||||
| 2000 | 11440 | 11135 | 8 | 25 | 59 | 339 | 213 | 1 |
| 2010 | ||||||||
| 2020 |
Method of Exclusion
- Threat of Violence
- Private Bad Behavior
- Reputation
Main Ethnic Group(s)
- Unknown
Group(s) Excluded
- Black
Comments
Vidor, a suburb of Beaumont, gained notoriety in
the early 1990s when African Americans – the first in
the town – moved into a local housing project. Ku Klux
Klan demonstrations and threats from white residents
cause the new black residents to flee. The federal
Office of Housing and Urban Development got
involved, and attempted to move more black families
into the housing project. They were also threatened
and also moved.
“I can not speak to the present demographics of
Vidor, but I have ALWAYS heard stories about how
blacks were advised NOT to stop in Vidor for any
reason.”
-posted to the web, 2000
A University of Texas – Houston undergraduate
student witnessed a family of Asian Indians denied
service at a McDonald’s in Vidor in 1992 or 1993. They
were told “We don’t serve your kind; there’s a bus
station down that way.”
“Among both Whites and people of color, Vidor
remains a well known bastion of bigots. C.R., an Euro-
American who grew up in Beaumont, but now resides
in College Station, says that she was not surprised
when on a business trip to Louisiana, her African
American and Latino colleagues did not want to stop
in Vidor for gas. R.H., an African American, delivered
the mail in Vidor for a short time. He was continually
taunted by Vidor residents, threatened with physical
violence, and refused service in a local convenience
store because of his ethnicity.”
-from the Summer 1998 issue of the Touchstone,
Texas A&M University
Many residents of Vidor or near by towns had heard
of or seen a sundown sign. It appears to have been
taken down sometime in the 1970s or early 1980s.