A sundown town was a municipality or neighborhood in the United States that deliberately maintained an all-white population through formal ordinances, racially restrictive housing covenants, intimidation, or physical violence, enforcing rules that forced non-white individuals—primarily African Americans—to leave town limits before sunset. In Oklahoma, several towns—including historical examples like Norman and Edmond—functioned as sundown towns during the Jim Crow era, utilizing local policing and social coercion to exclude minority residents. These discriminatory practices persisted until federal civil rights legislation and subsequent judicial rulings rendered racial exclusion illegal.