As he snatches the deed to her home from the poor heroine, the movie villain always sneers that "it's all perfectly legal." In real life, eviction can be just as cruel. One spring day in 1972 when some prospective buyers stopped by, Lillian K. Ware, 58, a black private nurse, learned for the first time that she no longer owned her $25,000 home in Evanston, Ill.; the title had been taken over some months before by a local real estate speculator. Barring some legal miracle, Mrs. Ware's subsequent two-year court battle against tough lawyers and a notably harsh Illinois tax-delinquency law...
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