Sundown signs.

I finally heard a happy story about the infamous "sundown signs."(These were those god awful racist signs that marred many an American town before the 1960s. They said such things as "whites only within city limits after dark". People were lynched for not paying attention to these signs.) It happened during World War 2, when Aptheker, a white Jewish Communist from New York, commanded a group of black soldiers stationed at an army base near Pollock, La. , a town with a nasty sundown sign. As part of their training, the soldiers were required to complete a 40 km march. Aptheker and a black sergeant decided to march through Pollock- at midnight. "It was all arranged by the men," Aptheker recalled. "As we approached Pollock around midnight.......we all began singing "John Brown's Body" at the top of our voices- a hundred black men with rifles and one crazy whiteman in front with a pistol."