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?
- Perhaps, Some Oral Evidence
- 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 | ||||||||
| 1900 | ||||||||
| 1910 | ||||||||
| 1920 | ||||||||
| 1930 | 2016 | 0 | ||||||
| 1940 | 1913 | 0 | ||||||
| 1950 | 2383 | 0 | 1 | |||||
| 1960 | 2609 | 2603 | 2 | 4 | ||||
| 1970 | 2764 | 2750 | 12 | 2 | 6 | |||
| 1980 | 3155 | 3101 | 32 | 18 | 10 | |||
| 1990 | 3076 | 3017 | 22 | 17 | 4 | 25 | 16 | |
| 2000 | 3321 | 3223 | 37 | 10 | 13 | 53 | 10 | 5 |
| 2010 | 3458 | 3278 | 58 | 16 | 4 | 122 | 26 | 7 |
| 2020 |
Method of Exclusion
- Unknown
Main Ethnic Group(s)
- Unknown
Group(s) Excluded
- Black
Comments
Testimony of a former resident:
“Frankly, I would characterize Lindsborg as a very definite sundown town, and in a very insidious way. I’m not sure the college had any black students until the 1950s, when they started bringing over prospective ministerial students from places like Kenya and other Lutheran missionary strongholds in Africa. (This would have been at the time when, ironically, some progressive Lutheran ministers were having to deal with the problems of European colonialsm and its ultimate demise in Africa.) But in Lindsborg, having white Lutheran missionaires return to town to talk about their experriences in Darkest Africa was considered a highlight of many church congregations. Also, there were any number of Lutheran missionaries who made their homes in Lindsborg.) The black students who came to Bethany from Africa were always acceptable in Lindsborg because the citizenry saw then as somehow “exotic,” people who had clipped English accents, and things like that. But they always lived on campus…
In term’s of Lindsborg’s sundown experience, I thgink we could say that the town was a dividided city, much like Jersualem–the town remained Lily white, while blacks were permitted to reside on the Bethany College campus.”
Another witness claims that Lindsborg had a sign on its water tower, “All Blacks Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on your Backs.”
A student at Bethany College in the mid-1970s was told by an older white resident that blacks were not allowed in Lindsborg after dark several years ago. This resident also told the student the story of a bad car accident that occurred near town in which the injured black people were denied treatment at Lindsborg’s hospital and were instead taken twenty miles north to Salina.