‘Goshen - A Sundown Town’s Transformation’ explores Goshen, Indiana’s past as a racially exclusionary Sundown Town and how the community is finding ways to acknowledge this history and move forward.

There have been thousands of such communities in the U.S., but Goshen is among the first to make a bipartisan declaration regarding “a past to stand against.”

For most of the 20th century, starting around 1900, Goshen, Indiana, was a “sundown town,” meaning African Americans were, by social and cultural means, excluded from living in Goshen
or even staying overnight here.

On March 17, 2015—after unanimous support from the Goshen Ministerial Association, Community Relations Commission, City Council and mayor—the council addressed Goshen’s lamentable legacy by adopting “A resolution acknowledging the racially exclusionary past of Goshen, Indiana, as a ‘sundown town.’” The resolution concludes: “It happened, it was wrong, it’s a new day.”

However, the shadow of this sundown-town history remains, and to what extent the “new day” is realized is up to the resolve of the community.