Central Illinois has a long and uncomfortable association with exclusionary "Sundown Towns", where certain groups rejected other groups, leading to racially separate - practically segregated - cities & villages.  

 But a noted local author tells 25 News he believes those days are increasingly behind us. "And of course, that sounds fine. Why shouldn't people stick together? But it immediately becomes a matter of oppressing other people. 

 Keeping them out, keeping them away from the "together" that we're in," said James Loewen in a satellite interview from Washington D.C.

 His book "Sundown Towns" was published in 2005, chronicling 'a hidden dimension of American racism'.