If you spend enough time on the internet, you’ll eventually see a video of a man holding a sign in Harrison, Arkansas. He’s usually being harassed or ignored, and the comments are always the same. People call it the most racist town in America. It’s a heavy title. It's a label that sticks like tar, and for Harrison, it’s been stuck for over a century. But honestly, identifying a single "most racist" place is kinda impossible because how do you even measure that? Is it the number of hate groups? The history of violence? Or maybe just the vibe you get at a gas station?
Harrison is a small city of about 13,000 people tucked away in the Ozark Mountains. It's beautiful. It's quiet. And yet, it has become the face of American bigotry. This didn't happen by accident. To understand why everyone points at this specific spot on the map, you have to look at a mix of brutal history, a few very loud extremists, and a community that is desperately—and sometimes awkwardly—trying to outrun its own shadow.
The Sundown Town Legacy of Harrison
The "racist" reputation isn't just some modern internet meme. It’s rooted in the early 20th century. In 1905 and 1909, Harrison was the site of two major race riots. A white mob stormed the local jail, took Black prisoners, whipped them, and told them to get out. They didn't stop there. They burned down homes in the Black community and shot out windows.
Basically, they ethnically cleansed the town.
By 1910, the Black population of Harrison had plummeted from 115 people to almost zero. It became what historians call a sundown town. These were places where people of color were literally told they had to be out of the city limits by sunset or face "consequences." While thousands of these towns existed across the U.S., Harrison’s legacy felt more permanent. For decades, it remained nearly 100% white, creating a demographic vacuum that invited a new kind of trouble in the 1980s.
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The KKK Connection That Sealed the Fate
In the late 20th century, a man named Thomas Robb moved to Zinc, Arkansas, just a few miles outside of Harrison. Robb wasn't just anyone; he was a national director of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. Because Harrison was the nearest actual city, the media began associating his presence with the town itself.
It was a PR nightmare.
Suddenly, Harrison was the "home of the KKK" in the eyes of the world. Even though Robb lived in a tiny, unincorporated area outside city limits, the distinction didn't matter to the outside world. The imagery of white supremacist billboards along Highway 65 didn't help. One infamous billboard featured a white family and the phrase "White Pride Radio," which stayed up for years. When people search for the most racist town in America, those are the images that pop up first. It's a visual brand that the town has struggled to break for thirty years.
Modern Day: Is It Still That Bad?
If you talk to the people living there now, you’ll hear a lot of frustration. They’ll tell you about the Community Task Force on Race Relations, which started back in 2003. They’ll mention the first-ever Black History Month proclamation issued by Mayor Jerry Jackson in 2019. Honestly, the city government is working overtime to scrub the reputation. They’ve put up "Love Your Neighbor" billboards to counter the racist ones.
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But statistics tell a complicated story. As of the 2020 Census, Harrison is still roughly 93% white. For comparison, the national average for white (non-Hispanic) residents is about 58%. While diversity is slowly creeping in, it’s a snails-pace shift.
- 13,069: The population of Harrison as of the last major count.
- 0.3%: The approximate percentage of Black residents.
- 2003: The year the town officially started a task force to fight its racist image.
In 2020, following the death of George Floyd, about 300 people gathered in the Harrison town square to protest police brutality. It was a significant moment for a town with this history. However, they were met by about 15 armed "counter-protesters" holding Confederate flags. This is the duality of Harrison. You have a progressive wing trying to heal, and a vocal minority that refuses to let the past die.
Why Branding Matters More Than Reality
Is Harrison actually the "most" racist? Probably not. If you look at segregation indices, cities like Detroit, Milwaukee, and Chicago often rank much higher for actual systemic separation. According to the Othering & Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley, Detroit remains the most segregated city in the country with a "Divergence Index" of 0.8412.
But Harrison is the symbolic capital.
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It's easier for the national media to point at a small town in the Ozarks than to look at the complex, systemic racism in New York or Los Angeles. Harrison is the "villain" of the story because it looks the part. It has the history, it had the billboards, and it has the demographics. For many, it’s a convenient place to dump all the country's racial anxieties.
What You Can Actually Do
If you’re traveling through or thinking about the issues Harrison represents, looking at it through a lens of "good vs. evil" isn't very helpful. The town is a case study in how hard it is to change a brand once it's set in stone.
- Support local efforts: If you want to see Harrison change, look into the Harrison Community Task Force on Race Relations. They are the ones on the ground doing the unglamorous work of education and outreach.
- Check your own backyard: Use tools like the SPLC Hate Map or the University of Richmond’s "Mapping Inequality" project. You might find that the "most racist" issues are closer to home than a small town in Arkansas.
- Visit with an open mind: If you ever find yourself on Highway 65, stop. Talk to people. You’ll find that most of them are just normal folks who are tired of being the national punchline for a history they didn't ask for and an extremist they don't support.
The story of the most racist town in America is really a story about the power of memory. Harrison can pass all the proclamations it wants, but until the demographics shift and the old guard completely fades away, it will likely carry that heavy title for a few more decades. It’s a slow process. Change doesn’t happen because of a billboard; it happens because of a thousand small, uncomfortable conversations in grocery store aisles and church pews.
To understand the broader context of how these "sundown" legacies still affect American real estate and local economies, you should look into the history of "redlining" in your own state. Many cities that claim to be progressive today still have neighborhoods shaped by the same exclusionary tactics used in Harrison a century ago. Understanding the data behind the Berkeley Segregation Map is a great place to start seeing the reality behind the reputations.