The Confederate flag place mat on the dining room table was Rob Mathis's first hint that something was off inside the home he was thinking of buying.
"I thought to myself, 'Wouldn't it be funny if this was a Klansman's house?'" said Mathis, who is black.
Previously, Mathis and his wife, Reyna, had been ready to make an offer on the five-bedroom home they viewed on Wednesday in Holton, Michigan, a small township of less than 3,000 people in Muskegon County. They thought the house on the 22-acre wooded lot about an hour outside of Grand Rapids would give them enough space to entertain their children and grandchildren. Then, Mathis walked into the NASCAR-decorated garage to see not one but two Confederate flags in what his wife would tell him was the home of a police officer, MLive reported.
When the family and their real estate agent went upstairs to check out one of the bedrooms, Mathis and his son noticed a lone wooden plaque holding an aged, yellowed document. Once the father and son got closer, they were disgusted to realize what they were looking at: an application to the Ku Klux Klan.
Also, this:
The discovery of Anderson's racist collection has cast new light on a nearly decade-old fatal shooting. Anderson was pursuing 23-year-old Julius Johnson during a traffic stop on Sept. 23, 2009. According to the findings of an investigation from the county's prosecutor, Johnson beat Anderson in the head, which caused the police officer, who said he feared for his life, to shoot and kill the black man. Johnson's sister, Tunisia Phillips, initially told investigators that she heard her brother beg for his life before Anderson shot him, according to WOOD.
The prosecutor later cleared Anderson of wrongdoing and eventually charged Phillips with lying to police, prompting protests from Johnson's family and the NAACP, according to MLive. Eric Hood, the president of the Muskegon County chapter of the NAACP, has now called for a comprehensive look at Anderson's dealings with people of color, WOOD reported.
EDIT:
Looking to buy houses while black.
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