Team Will Respond to Discrimination Complaints During Black Bike Week
MYRTLE
BEACH, S.C. – Local, state and national NAACP officials will again be
monitoring for complaints of discrimination during Black Bike Week in
Myrtle Beach, South Carolina over Memorial Day Weekend.
NAACP
volunteers from the national, state and local branches will be in
Myrtle Beach to respond as needed to incidents, document evidence and
address disputes between local business owners or police and the bikers
gathering through a telephone hotline and online complaint forms.
“Being
black and riding a bike should not subject you to the treatment
reserved for blacks riding in the back of the bus back in the day,” said
NAACP President and CEO Cornell William Brooks. “Separate but unequal
treatment is a part of our history that must not be revisited. For
decades, members of the South Carolina NAACP have confronted the
appalling and unfortunately common discrimination, racism and
intolerance in their home state. Our national office will always stand
shoulder to shoulder with them to bring to light the hateful prejudices
that override basic civil rights.”
Participants can report discrimination by local businesses online at www.naacp.org/bikeweekjustice, and can file complaints about police treatment at www.naacp.org/bikeweekarrest or call a special hotline at (888) 362-8683 to report a complaint.
This
is the 10th year that the NAACP has monitored local treatment of the
more than 400,000 riders who travel to the city annually on Memorial Day
weekend for the largest African-American biker rally in the nation. In
previous years, participants have been denied public accommodations by
many businesses and restaurants and faced intense enforcement by police
and public officials.
Black
Bike Week is one of two major motorcycle events held near the beach
town every May since the 1980s. It occurs after Myrtle Beach Bike Week
rally held May 13 – 22, a majority-white bikers rally that the city
hosted for decades.
While
town officials have repeatedly passed laws regulating both events,
merchants and public officials have treated the two crowds vastly
different. The NAACP has had to work in the past with merchants who
repeatedly denied services and accommodations to black bikers by closing
down for the weekend, increasing prices for goods and services, barring
customers from sitting in their dining rooms and other actions.
As
a result of overly aggressive policing tactics, participants in Black
Bike Week are often subjected to more arrests for minor infractions,
harsh fines for local traffic and noise ordinances and other
interactions with police. Town officials have a history of being openly
hostile to participants, and passed numerous traffic codes, noise
ordinances and municipal fines in an attempt to discourage the event.
Under negotiated settlements between the NAACP, city officials and
businesses over the years, multiple businesses agreed to stop
discriminating against riders while police instituted new training on
crowd control and operations.
“For
years, the NAACP has fought to ensure that Myrtle Beach businesses and
law enforcement do not show preferential treatment for customers based
on race,” said Dr. Lonnie Randolph, president of the South Carolina
NAACP State Conference. “The vast majority of bike week attendees are
law-abiding men and women looking to have fun. We will be working to
make sure that the city of Myrtle Beach doesn’t punish a gathering of
thousands for the bad behavior of a few.”
“This
event has been the cause of unnecessary tension and restriction in this
city, despite bringing millions in business and tourism to this town,”
said Mickey James, president of the Myrtle Beach branch of the NAACP.
“We hope that by working together, we can make this a safe and fun event
for everyone.”
This
year law enforcement officials will again be restricting bikers to a
23-mile traffic loop in the evening with limited exit points and have
installed body cameras, automated license plate scanners, public camera
surveillance and other enhancements to security. The city imposes the
23-mile traffic loop only during Black Bike Week, the one time of the
year when the majority of tourists in Myrtle Beach are
African-American.
Lawyers
and field organizers with the national headquarters of the NAACP
created the online reporting system and have been sent to Myrtle Beach
to assist the local chapter.
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Founded
in 1909, the NAACP is the nation's oldest and largest nonpartisan civil
rights organization. Its members throughout the United States and the
world are the premier advocates for civil rights in their communities.
You can read more about the NAACP’s work and our six “Game Changer”
issue areas here.
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