“In 1946, I seen a house that I wanted to buy. The house that I live in now. I seen that house, and I interceded for this house, and they said yeah we'll sell it to you, but what they asked for the house I couldn't afford it. So, I had a white couple that I met and I asked them to intercede. I said buy the house, and the price that they got was half the price. Twice as much. They wanted twice as much from me than they did want this white couple. In other words, I had to pay twice as much money. So, they bought the house for me. They bought the house for me, and in a few years I paid, paid them back enough money so I could get a loan on the house. That was very gracious of them.
Yeah it was just a friend, just a friend and found out that's what the--you know they--you couldn't buy, you couldn't better yourself by getting in debt for these expensive houses. The bank wouldn't lend you no money. The bank wouldn't lend you no money to buy a house they know wasn't worth what you had to pay for it. So, we lobbied the banks. Lobbied the banks to, to make it lenient on us and then that's that's the way we started. You could live better if you had a better house, and that's something else I lobbied Ronald Reagan. I just--every time I turn around I was--(unclear)--and wanted to know about len, lending policy of HUD [Housing and Urban Development] and they finally, they finally agreed to have fair housing. The fair housing was the biggest victory we have in this country. People living in fair housing.”
History Makers: Art Minson (The HistoryMakers A2002.174), interviewed by Larry Crowe, August 1, 2002, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 4, story 4, Art Minson talks about his interest in fair housing. Community leader Art Minson (1914 - 2005 )