KENNEWICK, Wash. – From the early 1940s until sometime in the 1960’s, segregation and the attitudes of members of the community made black people feel unwelcome in the Tri-Cities, according to Robert Bauman a History Professor at WSU Tri-Cities.
“Kennewick was a sundown town…there were some African Americans who worked there, not a lot. And blacks could come to Kennewick to shop whatever during the day. But the understanding was you had to be out by sundown,” Bauman said.
At that time the only place African Americans were allowed to own a home was east Pasco, according to Bauman.
Current Pasco Resident Vanis Daniels moved to east Pasco when he was 14 in 1951.
“Growing up if… you went to Kennewick… they didn’t want you over there and they let you know they didn’t want you over there,” Daniels said.
He said during the day he and his friends were often stopped and questioned by police in Kennewick.
“Where are you going? What you’re going for? And go there, get what you’re going after, and get back across that bridge,” Daniels said.
He says it was a known rule that black people weren’t allowed in Kennewick after sunset, but mentioned one time a cousin of his went with some white friends from work to a bar to buy beer.
“Well, he knew he wasn’t welcome in the tavern, so he told me, I’ll just stay out here until you guys come back,” Daniels said.
As his cousin was standing there Daniels said a police officer pulled up and asked his cousin what he was doing.
“He told them, and they say, you can’t be over here after dark… They took him and tied him to a telephone pole with a chain and held him there until the guys came out,” Daniels said.
After that, without being able to do much, the group went to Pasco where Daniels said it was relatively safer.
Bauman said the sundown town practice wasn’t something city officials tried to hide, citing an interview by the Washington State Board Against Discrimination.
“One of the times they interviewed the police chief who said, yeah, this is, you know, we don’t allow blacks to live here and if people are here after sundown, we remove them,” Bauman said.
It took years of persistence for civil rights organizations and community members to change the way things were with marches and even individual actions, according to Bauman.
Daniels said he’s often asked about the impact that time period has had on him.
“It made me much stronger than I would have been otherwise. Because once you keep butting your head against a stone wall, I mean, you eventually either learn that the wall is not going to give, or you’re going to knock a hole in it, one of the two,” he said.
