A racial slur and obscene drawings were painted in an oil-based substance on the street outside Anderson City Councilman Ollie Dixon’s home, discovered by his daughter on September 3. Campaign signs for that same daughter’s state Senate bid have also gone missing from his yard, his business, and other spots around town, and Dixon says derogatory messages were even left on his home landline.
A Longtime Councilman’s Home Targeted
Dixon, who has represented District 4 on the Anderson City Council for more than 35 years since his election in the late 1980s, according to the City of Anderson, told WISH-TV that he built the home himself 50 years ago and had never seen anything like this happen there before. He said the vandalism is especially troubling because his family visits the house often. “Bigotry and racism are still alive,” Dixon said, according to the same report.
His daughter, Tamie Dixon-Tatum, said she called him immediately after seeing the vulgar language painted near his house. As reported by WISH-TV, Dixon-Tatum said the incident is a reminder that hate cannot erase the progress Black people have made over generations, and she called on people to build more empathy and compassion for one another.
Harassment Extends Beyond the Street
The vandalism wasn’t an isolated act, per the same account. Campaign signs supporting Dixon-Tatum’s bid disappeared not just from her father’s yard but from his business and other locations around Anderson, and Dixon has said derogatory phone messages were also left on his home landline, according to The Herald Bulletin.
Anderson police are investigating the incident as a hate crime and are searching for security footage from the area, the station notes. Dixon said he wants whoever is responsible caught, charged, and held accountable, and he hopes they receive jail time.
A Councilman With Deep Civil Rights Roots
Dixon was elected president of the Madison County branch of the NAACP, WISH-TV reported, adding another layer to a case that arrives amid years of friction over Anderson’s political maps. District 4 is Anderson’s only majority-minority district, and Dixon strongly opposed a 2023-2025 redistricting effort, arguing that redrawing its boundaries would dilute Black voter representation, according to The Indiana Citizen. That dispute ended in February 2025 when a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit brought by Common Cause Indiana, the League of Women Voters, and the NAACP after the council agreed to adopt new maps, as reported by Indiana Public Radio, closing out boundaries that had stood since the 1980s.
Dixon-Tatum, who has served as Anderson’s Director of Civil and Human Rights since 2011 handling discrimination complaints and fair housing enforcement, is now the Democratic nominee challenging Republican incumbent Sen. Mike Gaskill in Indiana Senate District 25, per the City of Anderson. Gaskill has represented the area since 2018 and currently serves as the Senate Assistant Majority Floor Leader for Parliamentary Affairs, according to Indiana Senate Republicans. The district covers all of Madison County, including Anderson, plus northern parts of Hamilton County, per Ballotpedia.
Statewide Patterns Behind the Local Case
U.S. Census Bureau data shows Black residents make up about 11.7% of Anderson’s roughly 54,800 people, in a city that is 75.1% white. Statewide, racial, ethnic, or ancestry bias was the largest category of reported hate crimes in Indiana, accounting for 108 of the 184 bias incidents reported in 2023, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
Under Indiana Code § 35-38-1-7.1, amended by Senate Bill 198 in 2019, judges have discretion to consider racial bias as an aggravating factor that can increase criminal sentences, though the law does not mandate enhanced penalties, per the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. For now, Anderson police continue searching for surveillance footage as they investigate what happened outside Dixon’s home as a hate crime.
