"BIG SANDY -- A Hawkins man is claiming his civil rights and religious freedom were violated earlier this year when a black man sacked his groceries and a Big Sandy grocery store owner banned the customer from the business.
DeWitt R. Thomas filed a federal lawsuit in July against Keith Langston, owner of Two Rivers Grocery & Market.
According to the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Tyler, Thomas entered the market on March 5 to buy food.
He stated in a nine-page, hand-written lawsuit that he told the grocery sacker, a black man, “Wait a minute, don’t touch my groceries. I can’t have someone negroidal touch my food. It’s against my creed.”
Thomas claimed the cashier was “perplexed” by his request and yelled at him to take his items and leave.
In a telephone interview Wednesday, Thomas said, “It’s pretty simple. They treated me really bad because I told them it was against my creed.”
According to the lawsuit, Thomas went on to explain he meant a black person when he used the term “negroidal.”
The sacker, Aaron Menefee, said he thought Thomas was just kidding around.
“The first time he said it, I thought he was joking,” Menefee said. “Then he just kept repeating it.”
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