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The Tomlins are a Black couple from North Carolina who nearly lost their home after a sweet-talking broker talked them into a predatory subprime mortgage in the late 1990s. Fortunately, they mentioned the arrangement to a lawyer, who put together a huge class action suit with 1,300 plaintiffs and successfully sued the brokerage company for more than $10 million. While the Tomlins didn’t want to be the lawsuit’s public face, they felt that doing so was the honorable and patriotic thing to do. Still, their case is one of very few instances in which lenders faced repercussions for predatory behavior.
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Isaiah and Janice Tomlin Character Timeline in The Sum of Us
The timeline below shows where the character Isaiah and Janice Tomlin appears in The Sum of Us. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 4: Ignoring the Canary
After Black newlyweds Isaiah and Janice Tomlin bought a house in Wilmington, North Carolina in 1977, all the white families in their...
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When Janice Tomlin closed on her subprime loan, the agent prayed with her and promised her that she...
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...McGhee recalls visiting one Ohio neighborhood where nearly every family lost their house. (In comparison, Isaiah and Janice Tomlin were lucky to keep theirs.) And eventually, the subprime loan crisis brought down the rest...
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Isaiah and Janice Tomlin ’s class action suit gives McGhee hope: it shows her that society can still choose...
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