Research Symposium

BIO

Jahkaris Johnson is a junior at Florida State University pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Criminology and Criminal Justice, with a minor in Psychology and a certificate in Emergency Management and Homeland Security. Originally from Sebring, Florida, he is passionate about understanding crime, justice systems, and the social and psychological factors that influence public safety and inequality.

Jahkaris participates in the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP), where his research focuses on the historical presence of sundown towns and how those legacies shape modern patterns of exclusion and prejudice. His work involves coding historical and contemporary data while examining both violent and nonviolent forms of discrimination over time. Through this research, he works with faculty mentor Dr. Brendan Lantz and doctoral student Jack Mills, gaining experience in research design, data coding, and analysis.

After completing his undergraduate degree, he plans to attend law school and pursue a career in criminal or public interest law, where he hopes to advocate for others while continuing to deepen his understanding of the law.

Sundown America Today: Understanding Public Experiences of Modern Racism in Historical Sundown Towns

Abstract

Sundown towns were, by definition, communities which systematically excluded non-White
inhabitants. To date, the primary shepherd of knowledge on sundown towns has been James W.
Loewen, who was a public scholar and historical sociologist. Throughout his research, he
repeated central claims that sundown towns in America had not necessarily integrated at pivotal
Civil Rights landmarks for racially marginalized communities (e.g., the Fair Housing Act of
1968). Instead, he convincingly argued the case for sundown evolution in America and called
upon the public to submit known accounts and experiences of racism—broadly conceived—to
his data collection project. Building on this foundation, the current project explores data
submitted in response to Loewen’s call alongside systematic open-source searches documenting
modern experiences of racism in historical sundown towns from 2000 to 2026. Broadly, this
analysis affirms Loewen’s notion of sundown evolution into the present day. Specifically, our
project demonstrates that these lived experiences include a host of incident types, including
violent racism that plausibly meets hate crime designation thresholds, despite being in policing
jurisdictions which reported no such hate crimes during these reports. Taken together, these
findings underscore the continued relevance of sundown towns, not only as a structural form of
racial exclusion, but as communities in which policing differentially impacts racially
marginalized victims of targeted violence. While our work is ongoing, our results point to a clear
pattern: Sundown America continues its influence today.

Keywords: Criminology, Sundown Towns, Racial Discrimination