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?
- Probably Not, Although Still Very Few Black People
Census Information
| Total | White | Black | Asian | Native | Hispanic | Other | BHshld | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1860 | ||||||||
| 1870 | ||||||||
| 1880 | ||||||||
| 1890 | 7446 | 0 | ||||||
| 1900 | ||||||||
| 1910 | ||||||||
| 1920 | ||||||||
| 1930 | ||||||||
| 1940 | ||||||||
| 1950 | ||||||||
| 1960 | ||||||||
| 1970 | 20467 | 25 | ||||||
| 1980 | ||||||||
| 1990 | ||||||||
| 2000 | 22563 | 89 | ||||||
| 2010 | ||||||||
| 2020 |
Method of Exclusion
- Unknown
Main Ethnic Group(s)
- Unknown
Group(s) Excluded
- Black
Comments
Message 01/07/2008:
I grew up in Hinsdale, less than a half an hour from Keene, right across the border from Brattleboro. Granted, the area is mainly white–that’s the truth. Why it has remained so? Not due to some implied racism, but due to a horrible housing market. How horrible? People with decent jobs living at camp grounds and out of vehicles because there’s such a lack of housing in the city and what is there is overpriced. I’d also like to say that in my tiny town near Keene, there was a black family and several of South Asian and Pacific Islander descent. Yes, only one black family at the time I moved- but I went to school with the kids, one was in my
French class, though much younger. And you know what? There was no racism. Classism in bucketloads–middle class kids picking on the poor ones. But no racism. (Perhaps if the “ethnic” kids had been poor, there might have been, but they were no worse or better off than most.) Or at least, if there was racism, I didn’t see it, and in a town that size, everyone knows everything about everyone else. Adults, too. There were Islander boys recently welcomed into the Fire Department. I know, I know- this is Hinsdale I speak of, closer to Brattleboro VT than Keene.
Now, the rest of my state, I am disgusted to admit you’re likely dead on about them. But Cheshire County–of which Keene is the County seat–is different. We’re the only democratic County in the very republican state, and are a rather different culture.
As for your question still sundown? Please- the ALAANA festival takes place less than a half hour from its borders, and many from the Elm City attend. That’s the Asian Latino African American Native American Festival. Even if my beloved Keene was once racist– and the possibility must be there, it’s not like you simply listed it based on census information, right? You surely must have done more research than that before casting any city in such a negative light! 🙂 They certainly aren’t now. I have my doubts as to whether it ever was, but I don’t know the detailed history you need for that!