By Wednesday, Trump was calling the words “black lives matter” a “symbol of hate” — a description he’s refused to use for Confederate emblems — that would spoil the “luxury avenue” he once called home.
On Wednesday, the President fumed at a plan announced recently by officials in New York City to paint the phrase “Black Lives Matter” in front of Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue.
In the message, Trump wrote he was reviewing the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing mandate, which was enacted in 2015 as a way to bolster the 1968 Fair Housing Act, which outlawed restrictions on selling or renting homes to people based on race — and which Trump and his father were accused in a federal civil rights case of violating in 1973.
“At the request of many great Americans who live in the Suburbs, and others, I am studying the AFFH housing regulation that is having a devastating impact on these once thriving Suburban areas,” Trump wrote.
“This attack on fair housing is part of the Trump administration’s larger ongoing efforts to dismantle civil rights protections, and it must be stopped,” said Lisa Rice, president and CEO of the National Fair Housing Alliance, in March.
