(AFRO.com)—A Chicago couple faces discrimination charges after reportedly refusing to sell their home to comedian and radio personality George Willborn because he’s Black.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced Aug. 10 that it will charge Daniel and Adrienne Sabbia and real estate agent Jeffrey Lowe with violating federal fair housing laws after they stalled negotiations and eventually took the property off the market rather than sell to Willborn.

GEORGE WILLBORN

According to the department, Willborn and his wife Peytyn Willborn submitted a $1.7 million offer, the highest offer the sellers had received in the two years the home has been on the market. Lowe told government officials that Daniel Sabbia didn’t want to sell his home to an African-American.

Schlessinger said on her website Aug. 11 that she was wrong in using the word for what she called an attempt to make a philosophical point.

I WAS WRONG—Dr. Laura Schlessinger poses during her morning talk show in her Los Angeles studio.

by Julie Pace

PANAMA CITY BEACH, Fla. (AP)—Weighing his words carefully on a fiery political issue, President Barack Obama said Aug. 14 that Muslims have the right to build a mosque near New York’s Ground Zero, but he did not say whether he believes it is a good idea to do so.

HOSTS IFTAR DINNER—President Barack Obama hosts an iftar dinner, the meal that breaks the dawn-to-dusk fast for Muslims during the holy month of Ramadan, in the State Dining Room at the White House in Washington, Aug. 13.

Obama commented during a trip to Florida, where he expanded on a Friday night White House speech asserting that Muslims have the same right to freedom of religion as everyone else in America.

The president’s statements thrust him squarely into a debate he had skirted for weeks and could put Democrats on the spot three months before midterm elections where they already were nervous about holding control of the House and maybe even the Senate. Until Friday, the White House had asserted that it did not want to get involved in local decision-making.

1791—Benjamin Banneker wrote a letter to Secretary of State (later president) Thomas Jefferson denouncing slavery. In his letter, Banneker declared, “I freely and cheerfully acknowledge that I am of the African race” and then preceded to label America’s recently achieved freedom from England a “hypocrisy” as long as Blacks continued to suffer under “groaning captivity and cruel oppression.” Banneker was a Black activist against slavery even though he is generally recognized for his mathematical achievements, designing one of the first clocks made in America and laying out the nation’s capital after Pierre L’Enfant abandoned the job.

EDITH SPURLOCK SAMPSON