Sundown Town

Jason Aldeen picked this courthouse in Columbia, TN as the backdrop for the music video of his song “Try That in a Small Town. The site is known for the 1927 lynching of a young Black man and for a 1946 race riot.

There’s a big oak tree by the courthouse in every sundown town,

  a reminder to be cautious if you’re Black or Brown.

That tree has stood there silent since 1928,

  do not stay past sundown or it will be too late.

Their Lost Cause Monument stands stately in the Square,

  on April 26th the Klan will gather there.

Their robes and their hoods have long since disappeared,

  and people will assert, that’s not how they were reared.

The evils of the past, don’t mean that much today,

  so long as dark strangers are not allowed to stay.

There is no room at the Inn although the sign is lit,

  maybe you can find a place down the road a bit.

The steeple on the church beckons all to come,

  except for those who upset the town’s quorum.

The folks in a sundown town say their blood is pure,

  and sundown is the time that strangers disappear.

This town’s fate is cast, this town has been bypassed,

  it was frozen in the past, and Dixie didn’t last.

LDT July 28, ‘23

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