Black workers at East Texas plant were harassed with nooses, death threats, federal officials find

Jason Trahan filed this story:

Federal officials in Dallas have found that a group of black employees at a Paris, Texas, pipe factory were harassed with nooses, Confederate flags and death threats while white employees who refused to participate in the abuse were fired.


The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s finding, issued late last month, requires that the employees and their attorneys sit down with management of Turner Industries to reach a settlement on the matter. If that stalls, the employees have the option of filing a civil rights lawsuit.

“I’ve been called colored boy, coon, monkey,” said Dontrail Mathis, 33, a painter’s helper at the plant in Paris who began highlighting racist conditions in December 2006. “When Obama won, they went off. My superiors said ‘If he ain’t white, it ain’t right.’


“I saw nooses, swastikas on the wall,” said Mathis, a father of three. “It was horrible.”

Video from Dallas press conference: http://tinyurl.com/y65yzyf