Tim Kaine addressed the National Urban League conference in Baltimore Thursday, where he drew attention to a 1973 lawsuit in which Donald Trump and his father were accused of discriminatory renting practices.
Kaine recalled that his father-in-law, former Virginia Governor Linwood Holton, desegregated Virginia schools in the early ’70s. In doing so, he contrasted Holton’s efforts with Trump’s actions in the same period. “Around the time my father-in-law desegregated Virginia schools … the Justice Department filed suit after Donald Trump and his father for refusing to rent apartments to African-Americans,” Kaine said.
“This was a huge lawsuit,” the Democratic vice presidential nominee added. “The government took action and filed a lawsuit to stop discrimination, not at one or two, but at 39 different properties owned by the company.”
The Trump Management Corporation later reached an agreement with the Federal Government in which they promised to stop discriminating against black people, Puerto Ricans, and other minorities and provided the New York Urban League with a list of vacancies for a two year period.
As The Hill notes, Donald Trump is currently polling at around 1 percent of black voters nationally. According to National Urban League President Marc Morial, Trump was repeatedly invited to address the event or send a representative, but he declined to do so.
(Via Washington Post & The Hill)