Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension Of American Racism - Plot & Excerpts
But wheels had been set in motion. Developments in American popular culture comprised another force for change. Beginning with Elvis Presley in the 1950s, American popular music grew increasingly interracial. So have most sports, many television shows, and some movies, beginning with 1961’s A Raisin in the Sun, which specifically treated sundown neighborhoods. In the 1970s, white teenagers put up posters of such African Americans as Diana Ross and Jimi Hendrix in their bedrooms. In the 1980s, it was Bill Cosby and Alice Walker, among others. In the 1990s, Michael Jackson, Michael Jordan, and Denzel Washington were popular, and in the new millennium, Venus and Serena Williams, Tiger Woods, and an endless succession of hip-hop stars were in fashion.46 Nor can the influence of Oprah Winfrey be discounted: it is harder to keep African Americans out of your town when you keep inviting them into your living room via television. In 1972, the National Association of Realtors finally adopted a pro-fair-housing position.
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