Home » Wisconsin » Sun Prairie

James W. Loewen (1942-2021)

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

Sun Prairie

Wisconsin

Basic Information

Type of Place
Suburb
Metro Area
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 2263 0
1960 4008 0
1970 9935 101
1980 12931 76
1990 15333 103
2000
2010 29,364 2,297
2020

Method of Exclusion

  • Unknown

Main Ethnic Group(s)

  • Unknown

Group(s) Excluded

  • Black
  • Jewish

Comments

email 3/2008

I work for a large company in Madison, I am on the African-American employee council. For our annual picnic in 2006 we selected a park in Sun Prairie. Many of the black employees live there, it is also conveniently close to others.

We had about 60 people, all but 3 of whom were black. Many children, mostly under age 8. I was one of the white people and it is telling that I didn’t notice the police presence nearly as quickly as the others did. We had almost the whole park to ourselves, but for some reason the police drove by about every 15 minutes for the 4 hours we were in the park. A few times they even drove in to the parking lot and parked for a few minutes. I also wonder if that park usually has NO visitors on a summer afternoon.

According to a Madison resident, a friend at her synagogue claimed that in the 70s she had proposed that the public schools in Sun Prairie sponsor Holocaust Education (which was well researched and age appropriate). The community responded immediately and the family encountered resistance. Her daughter even received death threats on her locker. This caused the family to move out of Sun Prairie.