Home » Wisconsin » Ripon

James W. Loewen (1942-2021)

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

Ripon

Wisconsin

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?
Don’t Know

Census Information

The available census data from 1860 to the present
Total White Black Asian Native Hispanic Other BHshld
1860 2025 13
1870 4119 3
1880
1890 3358 0
1900 3818 0
1910 3789 0
1920 3929 2
1930 3984 0
1940 4566 1
1950 5619 3
1960 6163 0
1970 7053 49
1980 7111 18
1990 7241 22
2000 6828 13
2010
2020

Method of Exclusion

  • Unknown

Main Ethnic Group(s)

  • Unknown

Group(s) Excluded

  • Black

Comments

Local resident said he is pretty sure that Ripon was always segregated when he grew up although the town claims to have been part of the Underground Railroad. Guess it was OK to have blacks pass through town, but not good enough for them to stay.

Black-faced “coach boy” statuettes are still in yards in Ripon.

Ripon has a black alderman!

Minstrel shows went on in Ripon and other Wisconsin towns at least to the 1960s.

According to a professor, black students in Ripon got followed around in stores much more than white students.

My wife tells me in all the many documents she read over the years at the Ripon Historical Society (she was once president), she does not recall any which suggest prejudice or that blacks may have been kept out or driven out. However, she agrees with your comment that this sort of informal norm is rarely written down. She mentioned that there are documents establishing that fugitives on the Underground Railroad were harbored in Ripon. Perhaps it was the New England Yankee influence in settlement, or the Fourierite influence of Ceresco, once a separate town, now the west end of Ripon, which was founded in the 1850’s as a commune (lasted less than a decade).
Her preference is for the loneliness hypothesis, especially in a town this size, but I can also cite individual examples of subtle and sometimes not so subtle prejudice related to me by black and Asian students here over the years. Yet, one of the city’s present aldermen is black (he’s a development officer at the college). So it is indeed hard to sort out.