I'm from a town very close to Havana and can attest that this behavior is still practiced in a lot of municipalities around there. :/ I actually ended up writing a few pieces on my hometown's racist history, if only to help shed some light on the persistent issue. great write up, Ali!
Thanks! I would also love to read your pieces as well. Perhaps we can help others avoid these areas, as we have many people fleeing other states and coming here to Illinois for refuge when historically the state has more sundown towns than any other state on record.
And yes I've witnessed in recent years that Illinois continues to see more people flocking to the state for better equality compared to red states, only to find that a lot of central and southern IL is often times no better than the rural south. I've had a lot of frightening exchanges with locals from my hometown that I would've thought came straight out of the 1800s.
I'm from a town very close to Havana and can attest that this behavior is still practiced in a lot of municipalities around there. :/ I actually ended up writing a few pieces on my hometown's racist history, if only to help shed some light on the persistent issue. great write up, Ali!
Thanks! I would also love to read your pieces as well. Perhaps we can help others avoid these areas, as we have many people fleeing other states and coming here to Illinois for refuge when historically the state has more sundown towns than any other state on record.
Thanks for the interest, Ali!
here's the piece I wrote on Pekin (and a snippet from a novel I wrote about racist towns haunted by their past)
https://matthewallenrahn.substack.com/p/the-first-tuesday-of-the-month
And yes I've witnessed in recent years that Illinois continues to see more people flocking to the state for better equality compared to red states, only to find that a lot of central and southern IL is often times no better than the rural south. I've had a lot of frightening exchanges with locals from my hometown that I would've thought came straight out of the 1800s.