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
- 0
- Still Sundown?
- Surely Not
Census Information
| Total | White | Black | Asian | Native | Hispanic | Other | BHshld | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1860 | ||||||||
| 1870 | ||||||||
| 1880 | ||||||||
| 1890 | ||||||||
| 1900 | ||||||||
| 1910 | ||||||||
| 1920 | ||||||||
| 1930 | ||||||||
| 1940 | ||||||||
| 1950 | ||||||||
| 1960 | ||||||||
| 1970 | ||||||||
| 1980 | ||||||||
| 1990 | ||||||||
| 2000 | 78672 | 59960 | 2277 | 5066 | 192 | 15608 | ||
| 2010 | ||||||||
| 2020 |
Method of Exclusion
- Unknown
Main Ethnic Group(s)
- Unknown
Group(s) Excluded
- Black
- Hispanic
Comments
email 9/10/2007:
I grew up in Clifton, NJ and went to an all white high school in 1963. I recall only one black student in my class of over 1000.
Clifton was then, and I think still is, a working class town that was cheek by jowl with older working class towns of Paterson and Passaic. My class mates growing up came from quite a few ethnic groups – with children of Polish and Italian descent predominating among my classmates.
We moved frequently across city lines and never saw a sign warning blacks away. It would have been hard to have signs on all the streets that crossed boundaries. If blacks were kept out, it was through less blatant means.
My other memory is one of absence. Blacks were not visible, but neither do I ever recall anyone, child or adult, making a comment about “Negros” or “coloreds.” Either it wasn’t an issue because it hadn’t come up, it wasn’t an issue because Blacks were kept out, or I lucked out and didn’t happen to grow up among individuals who expressed racisist thoughts, at least not in my presence.
***
Julie Fields, in the Bergen County (NJ) Record, 3/16/1997:
Roz Steinberg-Cohen, a real estate broker who focuses on the rental market in Clifton, said about 70 percent of her clients are Latino.
“Clifton used to be an all-white town, and it’s not that way anymore. The people who still live here think it is, but that’s not the truth,” said Terravecchio, a sales agent who works with Steinberg-Cohen.
September 2007
I / we moved frequently across city lines and never saw a sign warning blacks away. It would have been hard to have signs on all the streets that crossed boundaries. If blacks were kept out, it was through less blatant means.
I do recall that my father had a black male friend who occasionally show up at our house and hang out with my father. As I child I took this to be normal and not at all remarkable, even though I don’t recall seeing other blacks around, even in more industrial Paterson and Passaic where we shopped and had family. In any case, I had no sense of tension from either my father or his friend, that would have indicated fears for or by this man for his safety in coming to our home. Interestingly though, my mother could not recall his name for me, when I wanted to use my genealogy skills to see if I could track him down. I will have to ask her again.
My mother, who grew up in Clifton, recalls a black family in high school with her in the 1930s. Adell Brewster, one of the four, had the same surname and sat right in front of my mother. It was the Depression and folks regularly disappeared, as did this family.
I have two other memories which may or may not be helpful here. One is being in kindergarten when we lived in neighboring Passaic. On the playground we kids, me included, were saying
“Eenie, meanie, minie, moe.
Catch a nigger by the toe.
If he hollers let him go.
Eenie, meanie, minie, moe.”
Our teacher heard us, sat us down in the classroom, and told us that “nigger” was not a nice word and that we should change our rhyme to “Catch a tiger by his toe.” This would have been 1950 or 1951, and the memory of this has stayed with me.
My other memory is one of absence. Blacks were not visible, but neither do I ever recall anyone, child or adult, making a comment about “Negros” or “coloreds.” Either it wasn’t an issue because it hadn’t come up, it wasn’t an issue because Blacks were kept out, or I lucked out and didn’t happen to grow up among individuals who expressed racisist thoughts, at least not in my presence. My childhood was part of why, when I married, I was willing to move to a part of Philadelphia that was very mixed race vs a vis blacks and whites on our block and surrounding blocks.