‘Find a Tree’: White Kansas City Workers Launched Mob Attack on Black Co-Worker and Threatened to Hang Him As Others Endured Months of Racial Abuse, Lawsuit Says

Several Black contractors who worked on a streetcar expansion project in Kansas City, Missouri, have filed a lawsuit claiming their former employer did nothing to stop the heinous, racist incidents they suffered from their white colleagues.

According to The Kansas City Star, the contractors filed the suit last month, alleging they were subjected to a racially hostile environment in which white employees would casually say racial slurs and make threatening statements on a “monthly and sometimes weekly and daily” basis.

The suit reportedly lists several instances that happened in 2023 in which white contractors would refer to nooses, aim menacing remarks at Black contractors, and consistently call them “monkeys.”

The complaint alleges that one foreman constantly referred to Black people as monkeys. In one instance, he allegedly said, “These monkeys I have on my crew ’bout to drive me crazy.”

In another incident, one of the plaintiffs overheard an employee refer to a strap on a trailer and say that he would “find a tree to put it in,” before aiming a pointed look at his Black co-worker. The lawsuit states that the remark brought to mind imagery associated with lynching.

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At one point, another Black contractor learned from a supervisor that a foreman working on his crew was a member of the white nationalist group, The Proud Boys.

The foreman reportedly witnessed someone repeatedly calling the Black employee the n-word, but never reported or confronted the offender. When the victim submitted a complaint to a project superintendent, the offending individual was fired, but the foreman’s lack of action was never addressed.

That same foreman was later overheard saying that “they [Black men] end up in a noose,” the suit states.

In another incident, another supervisor accused a group of Black contractors of breaking into the job site, but provided no evidence to back up his claims. This supervisor had also made racially derogatory allegations in the past, including accusing a Black worker of stealing a watermelon he brought to a worksite and making an unfounded accusation that he wasn’t working.

The suit also lists one dramatic and violent episode in which a group of white workers allegedly attacked a Black man who they caught trying to break into a work site.

Two of the assailants allegedly tied the man up, held him to the ground, covered his mouth with duct tape, beat him, then pushed their boot-clad feet into his genitals.

“Back where I’m from, we lynch people like you,” one of the men repeatedly said, according to the lawsuit. Another employee offered to get his truck and drag the man behind it, attorneys wrote.

One of the Black employees attempted to intervene to stop the assault, which led to a heated exchange between him and the alleged attackers.

“Plaintiffs worked and felt at the mercy of the terroristic whims of whomever chose to target them with race-based discrimination, harassment, or hostility as well as sexual harassment,” attorneys wrote.

In another incident, a Black contractor said he was “deliberately targeted” and sprayed with a high-pressure jet of water from a hose one of his white colleagues was using. The victim complained to his supervisors that he believed the incident was racist mistreatment and retaliation after he raised concerns about racial discrimination at work.

Numerous complaints were filed with higher-ups that were never addressed despite repeated promises from company leaders that they would intervene and improve working conditions.

No investigations or disciplinary measures were ever taken.

Following a meeting held by management in November 2023 to address the complaints, the contractors instituted a new disciplinary policy. At the policy’s implementation, every previous incident was reportedly removed from every employee’s record.

“The change in policy and the associated expungement of the employees’ records indicates an attempt to clear the record of any evidence of racial or sexual harassment on the construction sites,” attorneys wrote. “The attempted cover-up of complaints and disciplinary history is evidence that Constructors knew of the complaints and the hostile work environment and chose not to address it.”