Small Town Leading Efforts To Be More Inclusive

Local folklore has it that the small town of Bluffton, Ind., once had an ordinance to keep blacks out, Mayor Ted Ellis says. He never found proof but says he wondered why Bluffton remained 96% white while many other cities became more diverse.

"I always thought that Bluffton was no more hostile than other communities around," Ellis says.

ACROSS THE USA: Cities make quiet plea for tolerance http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-08-04-inclusive-cover_x.htm

Then came an anonymous letter about 18 months ago. It was a photocopy of a newspaper clipping about the opening of a restaurant in this town of 10,000 people about 25 minutes south of Fort Wayne. A hand-printed message above the photo of the restaurant owner, a college professor who is a Sikh, read, "We don’t wear turbans in Bluffton … we speak English."

Ellis was appalled. "I just felt I had been hit in the gut when I got that," he says.

By Haya El Nasser, USA TODAY

Full Story: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-08-03-inclusive-inside_x.htm