The idea of a Sundown town is nothing strange when it comes to my family. My mom spent a fair amount of her childhood in Tifton, Georgia. This was a period in time when the state of Georgia finally caved and integrated their public schools. Tifton was split by a railroad line and as you can guess one side was black and the other was white. My mom was bussed 45 minutes across town to the dilapidated african-american run schools and many of their students were bussed to the much nicer white schools. Her family was all about everyone having an equal opportunity at a proper education but why was she being bussed to the under funded and under staffed school nearly an hour away. Needless to say her family was very frustrated.
Her stories from Tifton are not exactly heart warming, it was an unofficial sundown town. The racial tension could be cut with a knife. After living their for a few years, a black family moved in next door from way out of town. My grandfather made an effort to warn them but they didn't understand the gravity of what it meant to live on the wrong side of the railroad tracks. The night after they moved in my mom woke up to in the middle of the night to see a giant cross burning in their new neighbors yard. The Klu Klux Klan had gotten word of them moving in and made it very clear they were not welcome. Before the end of the next day the family had packed their things and moved out of town.
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