First Black Family to Own a Home in Wealthy California Neighborhood Says White Residents Forced Them Out with Threats of Violence— Now the City Faces a Reckoning

First Black Family to Own a Home in Wealthy California Neighborhood Says White Residents Forced Them Out with Threats of Violence— Now the City Faces a Reckoning

A descendant of the first Black family to own a home in affluent Piedmont, California, is suing the city for forcing her great-grandfather to sell his home and inducing the family to flee nearly a century ago amid threats of mob violence by white residents. Sidney Dearing and his family were driven from their home in 1925 through threats, violence, terror, and what the lawsuit deems a fraudulent use of eminent domain by the city. The civil lawsu…