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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.

Sayville

New York

Basic Information

Type of Place
CDP, Unincorporated Borough, or MCD
Metro Area
Long Island
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
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
1970
1980
1990
2000 16735 16033 121 340 7 505
2010
2020

Method of Exclusion

  • Unknown

Main Ethnic Group(s)

  • Unknown

Group(s) Excluded

  • Black

Comments

From Nancy C. Curtis, Black Heritage Sites: The North (NY: New Press, 1996): Father Divine, the famous black preacher, “acquired property in 1919 in the all-white suburb of Sayville, LI. (p. 31) So it may have been all-white on purpose before then, but not since.

According to resident who grew up in Sayville: “Until the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964, there was an unofficial policy (tradition, if you will) of separating all of the non-white and/or non-Christian students into their own class year after year. The justification given was that it helped the real estate people by keeping property values up. If someone asked how Sayville handled ‘those people’ they could explain that their kids would be kept apart from ‘those kids’. Additionally, black people were confined (again, unofficially) to Hanson Place and Oak Street just south of the train tressel. This stopped less because of the passage of the Civil Rights Act itself, and more because that gave the local Episcopalian minister the confidence to go around threatening people with the ACLU if they didn’t.”