‘No Vacancies’ for Blacks: How Donald Trump Got His Start, and Was First Accused of Bias (Excerpts from The New York Times) Gifted link to article below.
'It was late 1963 — just months before President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the landmark Civil Rights Act — and the tall, mustachioed Fred Trump was appr…
‘No Vacancies’ for Blacks: How Donald Trump Got His Start, and Was First Accused of Bias (Excerpts from The New York Times) Gifted link to article below.
'It was late 1963 — just months before President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the landmark Civil Rights Act — and the tall, mustachioed Fred Trump was approaching the apex of his building career. He was about to complete the jewel in the crown of his middle-class housing empire: seven 23-story towers, called Trump Village, spread across nearly 40 acres in Coney Island.'
'He was also grooming his heir. His son Donald, 17, would soon enroll at Fordham University in the Bronx, living at his parents’ home in Queens and spending much of his free time touring construction sites in his father’s Cadillac, driven by a black chauffeur.'
“His father was his idol,” Mr. Leibowitz recalled. “Anytime he would come into the building, Donald would be by his side.”
' the next decade, as Donald J. Trump assumed an increasingly prominent role in the business, the company’s practice of turning away potential black tenants was painstakingly documented by activists and organizations that viewed equal housing as the next frontier in the civil rights struggle.'
'The Justice Department undertook its own investigation and, in 1973, sued Trump Management for discriminating against blacks. Both Fred Trump, the company’s chairman, and Donald Trump, its president, were named as defendants. It was front-page news, and for Donald, amounted to his debut in the public eye.'
“Absolutely ridiculous,” he was quoted as saying of the government’s allegations.
'Looking back, Mr. Trump’s response to the lawsuit can be seen as presaging his handling of subsequent challenges, in business and in politics. Rather than quietly trying to settle — as another New York developer had done a couple of years earlier — he turned the lawsuit into a protracted battle, complete with angry denials, character assassination, charges that the government was trying to force him to rent to “welfare recipients” and a $100 million countersuit accusing the Justice Department of defamation.'
'When it was over, Mr. Trump declared victory, emphasizing that the consent decree he ultimately signed did not include an admission of guilt.'
'But an investigation by The New York Times — drawing on decades-old files from the New York City Commission on Human Rights, internal Justice Department records, court documents and interviews with tenants, civil rights activists and prosecutors — uncovered a long history of racial bias at his family’s properties, in New York and beyond.'
'Looking back, Mr. Trump’s response to the lawsuit can be seen as presaging his handling of subsequent challenges, in business and in politics. Rather than quietly trying to settle — as another New York developer had done a couple of years earlier — he turned the lawsuit into a protracted battle, complete with angry denials, character assassination, charges that the government was trying to force him to rent to “welfare recipients” and a $100 million countersuit accusing the Justice Department of defamation.'
And that is how he has "skated" - most of his crimes before becoming president weren't big enough to justify that kind of fight, and if the evidence wasn't so overhwelming it could get through the Baffle Them With Bullshit defense, the prosecutors took a pass.
It was Donald's debut in the press.
‘No Vacancies’ for Blacks: How Donald Trump Got His Start, and Was First Accused of Bias (Excerpts from The New York Times) Gifted link to article below.
'It was late 1963 — just months before President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the landmark Civil Rights Act — and the tall, mustachioed Fred Trump was approaching the apex of his building career. He was about to complete the jewel in the crown of his middle-class housing empire: seven 23-story towers, called Trump Village, spread across nearly 40 acres in Coney Island.'
'He was also grooming his heir. His son Donald, 17, would soon enroll at Fordham University in the Bronx, living at his parents’ home in Queens and spending much of his free time touring construction sites in his father’s Cadillac, driven by a black chauffeur.'
“His father was his idol,” Mr. Leibowitz recalled. “Anytime he would come into the building, Donald would be by his side.”
' the next decade, as Donald J. Trump assumed an increasingly prominent role in the business, the company’s practice of turning away potential black tenants was painstakingly documented by activists and organizations that viewed equal housing as the next frontier in the civil rights struggle.'
'The Justice Department undertook its own investigation and, in 1973, sued Trump Management for discriminating against blacks. Both Fred Trump, the company’s chairman, and Donald Trump, its president, were named as defendants. It was front-page news, and for Donald, amounted to his debut in the public eye.'
“Absolutely ridiculous,” he was quoted as saying of the government’s allegations.
'Looking back, Mr. Trump’s response to the lawsuit can be seen as presaging his handling of subsequent challenges, in business and in politics. Rather than quietly trying to settle — as another New York developer had done a couple of years earlier — he turned the lawsuit into a protracted battle, complete with angry denials, character assassination, charges that the government was trying to force him to rent to “welfare recipients” and a $100 million countersuit accusing the Justice Department of defamation.'
'When it was over, Mr. Trump declared victory, emphasizing that the consent decree he ultimately signed did not include an admission of guilt.'
'But an investigation by The New York Times — drawing on decades-old files from the New York City Commission on Human Rights, internal Justice Department records, court documents and interviews with tenants, civil rights activists and prosecutors — uncovered a long history of racial bias at his family’s properties, in New York and beyond.'
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/28/us/politics/donald-trump-housing-race.html?unlocked_article_code=AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACEIPuomT1JKd6J17Vw1cRCfTTMQmqxCdw_PIxftm3iaga3DFDmwSiPkORJCH_0bRZKF4INc02T2fSJpdKqIqXLlyyfJEPkpiDhOhqZbCmIgAJ299j7OPaV4M_sCHW6Eko3itZ3OlKex7yfritEqKOzHgXLiPhCEjOApmoMR6Jl-ri2gMx6aWQrNw3tko36sxF9stE2d7ESqKtvbvDhp_PszXLU2Pr1lrBJwKHG3bjtWe6LkfcQpNCFqgTH535Gw07d00K8pAde-kbEZmIJyi9O1XXm94L46pBIkzQZzWl9hptL3Lqx-Kzqmm1t8g_yp9YPfSpiOY6kciRFA&smid=url-share
'Looking back, Mr. Trump’s response to the lawsuit can be seen as presaging his handling of subsequent challenges, in business and in politics. Rather than quietly trying to settle — as another New York developer had done a couple of years earlier — he turned the lawsuit into a protracted battle, complete with angry denials, character assassination, charges that the government was trying to force him to rent to “welfare recipients” and a $100 million countersuit accusing the Justice Department of defamation.'
And that is how he has "skated" - most of his crimes before becoming president weren't big enough to justify that kind of fight, and if the evidence wasn't so overhwelming it could get through the Baffle Them With Bullshit defense, the prosecutors took a pass.
I only have ugly four-letter words for Fred Trump and his offsprings and their offsprings!