time they were first created. Harassment and inducements contributed to keep African Americans out of new suburban areas. Schooling also played a large role in keeping the suburbs white. The suburbs often did not provide schools for black people, causing black families to send their children to school in large municipalities such as Atlanta, Georgia. In the 21st century In 2019, sociologist Heather O'Connell wrote that sundown towns are "(primarily) a thing of the past", but writer Morgan Jerkins disagreed, saying: "Sundown towns have never gone away." Historian James W. Loewen notes persisting effects of sundown towns' violently enforced segregation even after they may have been integrated to a small degree, a phenomenon he calls "second-generation sundown towns." For example, Ferguson, Missouri, was never a sundown city, but its black population dwindled to only 15 while the total population grew to over 22,000 by 1960 and the black population in nearby areas grew substantially. In 2018, four out of six Ferguson city councilors were black, and the police department was much more diverse. A consent decree had prohibited racial profiling. The terms of the consent decree prohibited activities that would categorize Ferguson as a second-generation sundown city. As of 2020, the consent decree has only been partially implemented, leaving Ferguson's status as a second-generation sundown city unclear. In response to an increase in violent crime, Chicago enacted a 6:00 pm curfew for youths in May 2022 at Millennium Park. The American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois said the curfew would result in "unnecessary stops and arrests" of young blacks, and Chicago Alderman Roderick Sawyer said the curfew was "discriminatory" and would make black children feel "they don’t belong in certain parts" of Chicago. Sundown towns in popular culture Gentleman's Agreement (1947), is known as "the only feature film [of its era] to treat sundown towns seriously." However, it dealt with a town that excluded Jewish people rather than black people. "The anti-Nazi ideology opened more sundown suburbs to Jews than to African Americans... Gentleman's Agreement, Elia Kazan's 1948 Academy Award-winning movie [exposed] Darien, Connecticut, as an anti-Jewish sundown town." The Fugitive Kind (1959), a film directed by Sidney Lumet and starring Marlon Brando and Anna Magnani, mentions sundown towns. A Southern sheriff tells Brando's character about a sign in the small town that reads, "Nigger, don't let the sun go down on you in this county." The same sign is