HUD officials investigating claims of racism Against Landlord who runs Racial Website
Roanoke landlord William A. White runs a Web site that airs racist comments, insults his critics and poses such questions as: "What about all the good things Hitler did?" But whether White's record as a landlord matches his rhetoric as an online commentator is a question yet to be answered by investigators with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Earlier this week, HUD officials were in town to investigate a discrimination complaint against White, who owns at least eight rental homes in the West End neighborhood. The inquiry began last year, when the Roanoke branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People filed a complaint with HUD alleging that White has evicted black tenants, filed unwarranted criminal charges against them and made slanderous remarks about them both in person and on his Web site, overthrow.com. White's critics have claimed that he plans to buy more homes on Chapman and Patterson avenues and evict all the black tenants as part of his so-called "ghetto beautification project," according to earlier court proceedings. White - described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a neo-Nazi who runs the country's second-most-popular racist Web site - denied Thursday that he intends to create any kind of white living space. [more]