Interracial Couple Evicted in Tupelo

A Northeast Mississippi woman claims she was evicted from a local RV park because her husband is African American. WCBI’s Allie Martin talked with the woman making the claims and a Civil Rights group, which is launching a full investigation.
Erica Dunahoo and her husband, Stanley Hoskins who is a National Guardsman, wanted to get their family back on solid financial footing so they bought a trailer to help cut expenses. Then, Dunahoo found out about a small RV park in the Belden Endville community owned by Gene Baker. “I went over there, real nice, couldn’t ask for no better. He invited me to church, told me about his family, his kids, his grandbabies.”
The next day though, Dunahoo says Baker called her. “He said, ‘you didn’t tell me you was married to no black man.’ I said, ‘Whoa, who is this?’ He said, ‘This is Mr. Baker, Gene Baker, that you rented that land for to put that camper on.’ I said, ‘Mr. Baker, I didn’t think it was important or a problem.’ He said, ‘Oh, it’s a big problem. The people at my church, the community, my mother-in-law, they won’t have that black and white shacking.’ I was like, ‘we’re not shacking, we’re married.’”
Dunahoo claims Baker told her they could not live at his RV Park and refunded their money. Their trailer is now at a park in Blue Springs and their seven-year-old daughter had to change schools. “It’s hard to explain to her, her daddy’s good enough to serve this country, but not good enough to rent a piece of property,” said Dunahoo.
Under the Fair Housing Act, it is illegal for a landlord to discriminate against anyone because of race. WCBI has made numerous calls to Gene Baker and he has not responded.
The NAACP has launched an investigation and they want to hear Baker’s side of the story. Chris Traylor with the NAACP said, “What I see that could bring a solution to this problem is this guy coming forward and saying why he feels this way about this situation. So we can dialogue together and maybe get solutions out of this and maybe he could say, ‘I was wrong.’”
Dunahoo claims she doesn’t want any financial compensation from Baker. Instead, she wants to see a change of heart. “I want him to fix where he cannot be racist, I want that.”
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