Home » Ohio » Reynoldsburg

James W. Loewen (1942-2021)

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

Reynoldsburg

Ohio

Basic Information

Type of Place
Suburb
Metro Area
Columbus
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
1990s
Still Sundown?
Surely Not

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 7793 8
1970 13921 18
1980 19519 317 7
1990 24174 1047
2000 32,069 27,261 3,347 86 541 1,241
2010 35983 8374 83 656
2020

Method of Exclusion

  • Police or Other Official Action

Main Ethnic Group(s)

  • Unknown

Group(s) Excluded

  • Black
  • Hispanic

Comments

“In Reynoldsburg, Ohio, … the NAACP claimed that racial hostility was so unrestrained that the police had organized a SNAT %u2014 Special Nigger Arrest Team %u2014 for the express prupose of harassing blacks.”
[Ellis Cose, The Rage of a Privileged Class (NY: HarperCollins, 1993), 184.]

Ordeal began with traffic stop:

“A target of the mostly white Reynoldsburg police department ‘Special Nigger Arrest Team,’ or SNAT, has filed a civil rights suit seeking damages for his arrest. Alexander Spater filed the suit on behalf of Gregory Murphy.”
[USA Today, July 23, 1993]

In 1988 an internal investigation revealed the existence of fraternity within the ranks of the Reynoldsburg, Ohio Police Department called ‘SNAT’ or ‘Special Nigger Arrest Team’. Congressional intent regarding § 14141’s enactment is set forth in the Committee Report that discussed the Police Accountability Act of 1991.
The Report described or referenced numerous, egregious instances of recent patterns or practices of unconstitutional police misconduct. The Report summarized the findings of the Committee’s Sub Committee on Civil and Constitutional Rights, which had held hearings on police misconduct and received evidence of systemic misconduct in law enforcement agencies, including: ….
* Evidence that a special unit in the Reynoldsburg, Ohio police department called itself the SNAT team, for “Special Nigger Arrest Team.”

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF OHIO
EASTERN DIVISION
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff, v. CITY OF COLUMBUS, OHIO, et. al., Defendants.
Civil No. C2 99 1097
Judge Holschuh
Magistrate Judge King
THE UNITED STATES’ MEMORANDUM IN OPPOSITION TO THE CITY OF COLUMBUS’ MOTION TO DISMISS AND THE FRATERNAL ORDER OF POLICE’S MOTION FOR JUDGMENT ON THE PLEADINGS]
In Reynoldsburg, Ohio, an African American secured a settlement after he was arrested by a group of officers who called themselves the Special Nigger Arrest Team.
[http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/split/documents/columbbr.htm#N_1_]

According to a teacher within the Reynoldsburg City School District, “I can tell you that Reynoldsburg is without a doubt not a Sundown Town. My building alone is more than 54 % African AMerican and we have a large Hispanic, white, and Muslim populations as well.”