Sociohistorical contexts of racial violence: sundown towns and the durability of racialized public space – Psychiatry AI: Real-Time AI Scoping Review

AI Summary

Sundown towns constituted legal and conventional practices that restricted Black mobility and produced a durable racialised organisation of public space.
Using cell phone location data on park use across Missouri, the study documents racial disparities in public park visitation.
Former sundown town areas amplify visitation gaps, widening disparities between majority Black and majority White communities and showing persistent historical effects.

AI Summary

Scholarly work on racial violence has illustrated the diverse effects of historical practices like slavery, lynching, and redlining upon contemporary racial inequalities.

We argue that the racialized organization of public space that was produced via sundown practices is expressed today in racialized engagement with public space and test this using cell phone location data describing public park use across Missouri.

Here, we find that racial disparities in park visitation are excebrated in former sundown town areas - with already disparate park vistiation rates between majority Black and majoirty White communities widening significantly when the destination park is within the bounds of a former sundown area.

Basic summary

Ethn Racial Stud. 2026;49(2):480-495. doi: 10.1080/01419870.2025.2570482. Epub 2025 Nov 5.

ABSTRACT

Scholarly work on racial violence has illustrated the diverse effects of historical practices like slavery, lynching, and redlining upon contemporary racial inequalities. We extend this work by considering the durable legacy of sundown towns – an understudied package of legal and conventional practices restricting the mobility of Black communities. We argue that the racialized organization of public space that was produced via sundown practices is expressed today in racialized engagement with public space and test this using cell phone location data describing public park use across Missouri. Here, we find that racial disparities in park visitation are excebrated in former sundown town areas – with already disparate park vistiation rates between majority Black and majoirty White communities widening significantly when the destination park is within the bounds of a former sundown area. Overall, our findings illustrate the diverse and persistent ways that historical regimes of racial control shape even mundane behaviors in contemporary society.

PMID:42369183 | PMC:PMC13309204 | DOI:10.1080/01419870.2025.2570482

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