Grosse Pointe Shores Attorney Target Of Racial Hate Mail

GROSSE POINTE SHORES, MI — A Grosse Pointe Shores attorney who was ticketed for having too large of a Black Lives Matter sign and, in response, sued the city has now been the target of racial hate mail.

Todd Perkins received a letter that contained an early 20th-century poem with racial slurs and signage that poked at the Black Lives Matter movement. Police are investigating the letter, which had a return address on it, and have been in contact with the person living at the address on the envelope.

"We're grownups," Perkins told FOX 2. "This shouldn't shock you that this is happening. Racism is profuse in this western culture, since its inception it's been there. And it will take, hopefully, not as long as it's been since it's been there to eradicate it."

Perkins was ticketed by Grosse Pointe Shores in November because a Black Lives Matter sign in front of his house exceeded 7-square-feet. In response to the ticket, Perkins filed a lawsuit against the village and it ultimately dismissed the ticket. The lawsuit, however, is still pending.

The attorney had moved to Grosse Pointe Shores in 2011 and first put the Black Lives Matter sign up in his yard in October 2020. The sign was blown from a tree during a wind storm, and on the same day he put the sign back up someone had complained to the city.

"If you're trying to suppress me and silence me on this microcosm, on this small level, just imagine what it's like on a larger level," Perkins told The Detroit Free Press at the time. "Failure to have justice here is a failure to have justice anywhere."