Posted on 04/22/2005 10:54:48 PM PDT by freepatriot32
The modest brick house, with its yard full of wilting tulips and rusted old cars, isn't a candidate for the pages of Better Homes and Gardens.
But on a spring day in 2002, it was just what Nealie Pitts had in mind. She approached the owner, Rufus T. Matthews, and asked the price.
According to court documents, Matthews said the house was selling for $83,000 - but that a deed restriction meant only whites were eligible to buy it.
"I was hurt and angry, like he had slapped me in the face," Pitts, who is black, said in an e-mail.
Nearly three years later, the Virginia Office of the Attorney General said it will soon take Matthews to court for the alleged fair housing law violation.
It's a bittersweet victory for fair housing proponents, who wonder how many other people are turned away by racially restrictive deed covenants.
"We very rarely encounter anybody who believes they can be enforced," said Connie Chamberlin, president of Housing Opportunities Made Equal (HOME). "We are aware they're certainly out there."
In milder forms, covenants can be used to control things like the color homeowners can paint their houses.
But in the Jim Crow South, they were often used to keep neighborhoods white. Racially restrictive covenants were ruled illegal by the Supreme Court in 1948.
"Many people don't even know they're in their deeds," Chamberlin said, adding would-be homebuyers can ask to have the racist language removed. "That can't be used as a reason to stop a sale."
According to court documents, Matthews told Pitts his house in suburban Richmond was "not for colored. We decided we are going to keep this area right here all white."
The next day she contacted HOME, which sent out a black test buyer.
"Precisely the same thing happened," Chamberlin said. "We have it on tape."
On Thursday, Matthews told The Associated Press that he would sell his home only to a white buyer. But he denied the house was for sale, saying a sale sign he had was for items in his yard. "The house has never been for sale," he said.
Matthews is accused of violating the Virginia Fair Housing Law. The same code says officials can attempt an out-of-court settlement in cases where the law has been violated.
At an April 13 meeting, the Virginia Fair Housing Board rejected a settlement offer. Board Chairman David Rubinstein declined to detail why it refused the proposal from the attorney general's office.
But Thomas Wolf, an attorney representing Pitts, said the offer would have required Matthews take two hours of class on fair housing law, at taxpayer expense.
"That is not a serious settlement proposal given the facts of the case," Wolf said. "Were they planning to pass out Happy Meals with little Confederate flags?"
Emily Lucier, a spokeswoman for Attorney General Judith Williams Jagdmann, could not explain how the proposal was formulated, but said settlement is not unheard of in discrimination cases.
Pitts is seeking $100,000 in damages in a separate case against Matthews. Lucier said because Pitts has gotten her own lawyer, the office cannot legally seek monetary damages in the civil matter.
Instead, she said, the office will continue pressing for injunctive relief and education. A court date has not been set
There are zero "women and minority" medical schools. What he meant to say was that there were plenty of open slots available to him but he was not up to the competition for the open slots and he is resenting that some slots were reserved for women and minorities.
Fact is he did have a solid oppportunity to go to med school.
So were the treaties the US govt. signed with the Indians.
Have to agree with you. Most people should use a lawyer when going to trial. Probably should consult a brain surgeon too before trying it yourself.
If you look at the "reverse" discrimiation against white males today, it pales in comparison to the discrimination faced by non white males in the past. You guys sound like crybabies to me.
The answer, in our current political environment, is yes if you have the political clout. If it were not yes, then progress would be slowed to a crawl and then a complete stop. The crime here is that everyone does not have these rights, regardless of political connections, except of course where they have been contractually restricted.
I agree! The apparent white racism on this thread is absolutely mind boggling.
It's not true. Amish may sell their homes and farmsteads to the "English" as they call non-members. It is discouraged by the community, however.
Yes, now as I recall, although they don't use electricity in their homes, in some cases they will wire them just in case they need to sell out.
It is discouraged by the community, however.
And that carries a lot of weight with them. But that gets us back to the issue of this thread -- how would they sell to church members only in violation of anti-discrimination law?
Friends, we do have ourselves an unreconstructed segregationist here. In 2005, no less!
Go right ahead, our house is situated in the middle of our property, 26 acres.
Am I allowed to use my house as a halfway house for the insane ?
Only if you are a mental hospital.
Am I allowed to grow pot on my land ?
Pot is a controlled substance.
Can I as your neighbor, build a oil refinery on my land ?
Go for it, unfortunately it would just be a waste because all the mineral rights in this area were sold or given away 100 years ago.
I still believe and will always believe in 'personal property rights'.
Yeah but we don't live in the past. Or maybe we live in an Orwellian future where everyone is equal but some are more equal than others.
This is illegal per the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The only way you can limit access is to make it a private (ie: members only) club.
My goodness there are a lot of people here that keep the white sheet just behind the front door....
Exactly.. Sheeple, democrats and RINOs.. don't think that deeply..
You're being sarcastic, I hope.
I don't care if you're changing their attitudes or not. I think its discriminatory and un-American to exclude black people or Jews or Irish from a restaurant or a neighborhood or a swimming pool or a school, and that's my concern. Whether or not they like each other is a separate issue outside of the purview of government.
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