After years of repeating conspiracies that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States, Donald Trump finally backed away from the so-called birther movement earlier this month.
But that didn’t stop the question from coming up during a key exchange at Monday’s presidential debate in New York.
Hillary Clinton said Trump embraced a "racist lie" and it demonstrated a pattern that carried over from his business practices.
"Donald started his career back in 1973 being sued by the Justice Department for racial discrimination because he would not rent apartments in one of his developments to African-Americans," she said.
That’s quite the charge, but is it true?
Yes. It turns out he was.
In 1973, Trump, as a 27-year-old, was president of his father’s realty company, Trump Management. It operated nearly 40 apartment buildings, mostly in New York City. By all accounts, including his own, Trump was a hands-on president and very active in managing the day-to-day business operations.
That year, the federal government filed a complaint against Trump, his father Fred Trump, and Trump Management. The complaint alleged that the Trumps violated the Fair Housing Act, part of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, by discriminating against tenants and potential tenants based on their race.
"The defendants, through the actions of their agents and employees, have discriminated against persons because of race in the operation of their apartment buildings," the complaint reads.
Black people, the government found, were often told a Trump Management complex had no availability when apartments were available for rent.
In one instance, a black man asked about two-bedroom apartments at Trump’s Westminster complex in Brooklyn on March 18, 1972, and a superintendent told him nothing was available. On March 19, 1972, the black man’s wife, who was white, visited the complex and was offered an application for a two-bedroom apartment on the spot.
The government lawyers also interviewed several people who said executives for Trump Management discouraged rental agents from renting to black people. In one case, the government said the company’s comptroller instructed a rental agent to attach a sheet of paper that said "C" for "colored" to every application submitted by a person of color.