“You just couldn’t go,” Pinkney, a Miami resident, told NBC 6.
A database at Tougaloo College lists Miami Beach and Coral Gables as potential “Sundown Towns.” The historian behind the database, James Loewen, went on to detail them in a book titled “Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism.”
Local historians Marvin Dunn and Dr. Paul George say many towns with “beach” in their names were “Sundown Towns” because Black people had to be off the beach after dark.
At times, they also excluded Jewish people, Latinos, and anyone considered not to be white.
Pinkney says she remembers visiting her family at work on Miami Beach but having to leave before evening.