The first mention of Donald Trump in the New York Times was…not good

By Fusion Staff  |  July 31, 2015 | 3:43pm
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Donald Trump, presidential candidate, has been making waves this summer as a GOP presidential hopeful. 42 years ago, however, he was making waves for a different reason entirely: as an allegedly racist landlord being hounded by the Department of Justice.

In the October 16, 1973 edition of The New York Times, Trump received his first ever mention in the paper in a front-page article with the headline “Major Landlord Accused of Antiblack Bias in the City.”

The 27-year-old Trump, through the Trump Management Corporation, was being charged by the Department of Justice for allegedly violating the Fair Housing Act of 1968 for requiring “different rental terms and conditions because of race” and lying “to blacks that apartments were not available.” The company controlled some 14,000 apartment units in the city at the time, mostly in neighborhoods like Coney Island, Forrest Hills, and on Staten Island.

Two months later, under representation from Roy Cohn, Trump sued the Federal government. That suit was settled and part of the agreement said Trump “was required to furnish the New York Urban League with a list of all apartment vacancies, every week, for two years. It was also to allow the league to present qualified applicants for every fifth vacancy in Trump buildings where fewer than 10 percent of the tenants were black.”

Not the best way to arrive in the NYT for the first time, though being referred to as “poison” by an op-ed columnist four decades later isn’t much better.

David Matthews operates the Wayback Machine on Fusion.net—hop on. Got a tip? Email him: [email protected]

 
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