In another unhinged rally tonight, Donald Trump literally bragged about managing an apartment complex that was found to illegally promote racial segregation in Ohio—even as he claimed he would support communities of color as president. In Toledo, Trump fondly recalled managing his family’s apartment complex in Cincinnati. Trump called the project “one of the first jobs I’ve ever done” and “a great success and it gave me that confidence, you know, I had a success, and it was confidence.” What he failed to mention is that the development had a record of excluding people of color, had numerous complaints against it and had to settle a racial discrimination suit.
Here are the actual facts about Trump’s record of bigoted business practices in Ohio:
TRUMP’S REMARKS: “There’s a lot of good energy in Ohio, that I can tell you. You know I worked here very early in my career, like the earliest. One of the first jobs I’ve ever done, I worked in Cincinnati. And it was a great success and it gave me that confidence, you know, I had a success, and it was confidence. And I love Ohio, always have.” [Toledo, OH, 10/27/16]
Background on Trump’s Racial Discrimination Lawsuit Settlement in Cincinnati
Circa 1969: While Donald Trump was still in college, Fred Trump sent Donald to Cincinnati to manage his Swifton Village property. “Completed in 1953 by New York developer Jonathan Woodner, the $10 million Swifton Village was immediately plagued by high vacancy rates, with about half of its 1,154 units occupied… That’s when New York developer Fred Trump flew into town, plunked down $5.7 million at a sheriff’s sale and bought the property. He sent his son, 25-year-old business school whiz Donald Trump, to Cincinnati to manage the property.” [Cincinnati Enquirer, 9/1/02]
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In Art of the Deal, Donald Trump took credit for discovering Swifton Village in Cincinnati, calling it “my first big deal.” “In college while my friends were reading the comics and the sports pages of newspapers, I was reading the listings of FHA foreclosures. It might seem a bit abnormal to study lists of federally financed housing projects in foreclosure, but that’s what I did. And that’s how I found out about Swifton Village. It was a job that I bought with my father, while I was in college, and it was my first big deal. Swifton Village was a 1,200-unit apartment development in Cincinnati, Ohio, and it was a very troubled place.” [Donald Trump, The Art of the Deal, 1987]
1969: Fred and Donald Trump were sued for racial housing discrimination at Swifton Village and later settled the suit for the maximum allowable amount. “In June 1969, Haywood Cash, a black stock clerk at a nearby General Electric plant, inquired about an apartment at Swifton. After the rental agent told him he did not meet income requirements and there were no vacancies, Cash and his wife contacted a local civil rights organization called HOME, which then rented an apartment within the Cash family’s income eligibility. When HOME attempted to turn over the apartment to the Cashes, the Swifton general manager called a HOME representative a ‘nigger lover’ and threw her and Haywood Cash off the premises. The Cashes filed a discrimination suit under the Civil Rights Act of 1968, and a lawyer for Swifton, acting on Fred’s orders, offered them an apartment. They moved in and dropped the suit but asked for damages, eventually settling for the maximum allowable award of $ 1,000. Outwardly that was the end of the matter, although Donald would continue to insist that his father had done nothing wrong. Donald saw what had happened as a loss, and he did not take losing well.” [Gwenda Blair, The Trumps: Three Generations that Build an Empire, 2000]
The Cincinnati civil rights organization HOME received numerous complaints of discrimination at Trump-owned Swifton Village. “HOME had received other complaints of discrimination at Swifton, but these were settled by compliance and did not go to court.” [Gwenda Blair, The Trumps: Three Generations that Build an Empire, 2000]