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James W. Loewen (1942-2021)

We mourn the loss of our friend and colleague and remain committed to the work he began.

Mount Olive

Illinois

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?
Perhaps, Some Oral Evidence
Sign?
Don’t Know
Year of Greatest Interest
Still Sundown?
Probably

Census Information

The available census data from 1860 to the present
Total White Black Asian Native Hispanic Other BHshld
1860
1870
1880
1890
1900
1910
1920
1930
1940
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990 2126
2000 2150 2124 0
2010
2020

Method of Exclusion

Main Ethnic Group(s)

Group(s) Excluded

  • Black

Comments

A local gas station worker said blacks traveling from St. Louis to Chicago routinely carried “an extra ten-gallon tank of gas in their trunk, because no one would sell them gas en route.” Certainly no one would in Mt. Olive.

According to a student at the time (late 1950s), the city council had to meet to approve a bending of the sundown ordinance to allow Lincoln HS from E. St. L. to play football at night in Mt. Olive. (Taken in 2005)