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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.

Ducktown

Tennessee

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?
Probable
Was there an ordinance?
Don't Know
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 1064 0
1960
1970
1980
1990 421 0
2000 427 0
2010
2020

Method of Exclusion

  • Unknown

Main Ethnic Group(s)

  • Unknown

Group(s) Excluded

  • Black

Comments

“Tonawanda, the first stop outside of Buffalo, was like Ducktown, TN, in that it allowed no Negro to live there.”
[James A. Atkins, The Age of Jim Crow (NY: Vantage, 1964),

An older man told of going in to Ducktown with a black doing a job, and whties gathered about and yelled, “Get him out!”

A local resident testifies:
“I went to the Ducktown Museum on Saturday and asked about black miners and was told that there were none. There were some black workers who came through on the railroad, but none who worked for the copper mines. Many of the miners initially came from Georgia (easier access to the mines) with others later coming in from Eastern Europe with the turn of the century migration flow.”