|
|
|
| |
The 2000 Annual Meeting in St. Louis: A Historical Account |
||
| Adam's Mark Announces Settlement of Case, December 2001 |
In 1995, the OAH selected St. Louis as the site for its 2000 annual meeting. We signed a contract with the Adam's Mark hotel since it was the only appropriate facility in St. Louis that could house the vast majority of our sessions and events within one hotel. At the time, OAH selection criteria were limited to how well the hotel could satisfy our needs in putting on a convention that drew an average of 2,200 historians. In May 1999, the Florida State Conference of the NAACP filed a lawsuit on behalf of a group of black college students against the Adam's Mark hotel in Daytona Beach, Florida. The suit claimed that the students were segregated from white patrons, made to wear orange armbands, and received inferior service from the hotel. As a result of that lawsuit, the U.S. Department of Justice launched an inquiry into the practices of the Adam's Mark hotel. The investigation widened into a nationwide probe of the hotel's record, and by fall 1999, the department had discovered evidence that implicated the chain in a pattern of racial discrimination dating back to the late 1980s. Failing to reach a settlement, the department decided to sue the hotel under the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the first time in history that the act had been used against a hotel chain. The OAH first heard of the department's action when its lawsuit was filed in December 1999. By early January of 2000, the executive office began hearing from concerned members about the situation. Some demanded that the OAH cancel its contract with the hotel, while others expressed concern that the issue would split the OAH membership. Exacerbating the situation was the news that several groups, most notably the Episcopal Church, had begun to cancel their events at Adam's Mark hotels around the country. The OAH executive board met several times by conference call to discuss the issue and discovered that outright cancellation of the contract and the annual meeting would result in a penalty ($425,000) and lost revenues ($200,000), nearly half of the OAH annual budget. As a result, the Executive Board decided to hold the meeting as planned but vigorously protest the policies and record of the Adam's Mark hotel. This response was outlined in President David Montgomery's January 26 statement to the membership, in which he called for members to use the meeting as a "teachable moment." At the same time that the executive board agonized over how to proceed on this issue, several historians scheduled to present papers at the St. Louis meeting informed the executive office that they were canceling their sessions. Simultaneously, a group of historians calling itself the Committee for a New Convention Site (CNCS) formed to organize a boycott of the 2000 meeting. More and more members contacted the OAH office and the executive board stating they would not attend or would organize community-wide protests and picket the St. Louis meeting. Meanwhile, other historians pressured the OAH to hold the meeting as scheduled. These developments led to further discussions among the executive board members and the outlining of three options: 1) cancel the contract and the meeting outright; 2) hold the meeting as planned without any changes; 3) move the plenary sessions, the presidential address, and the business meeting out of the hotel, and use the annual meeting to protest the practices of the Adam's Mark. To gauge members' response, the executive office sent the three options by email on February 3 to the 4500 members whose e-mail addresses were on file. Four hundred-fifty members replied to the executive office by e-mail and telephone, 75 percent of whom favored moving the major sessions out of the Adam's Mark hotel and having the meeting as planned, with special sessions added to address the issue of racism in American society. It should be noted that the vast majority of members responding indicated their unhappiness with the situation and a desire to abandon the hotel if at all possible. (Read a sample of members' responses.) In the meantime, OAH staff researchers discovered that the Adam's Mark chain had been sued seven times between 1991 and 1999 over charges of racial discrimination. Two of the suits involved the St. Louis hotel, while others involved incidents at Adam's Mark hotels in Philadelphia, Memphis, Houston, Daytona Beach, and the entire chain. The court records revealed a record of racial discrimination against black employees and patrons by the entire chain dating back to the late 1980s. In February, Adam's Mark renewed its negotiations with the Justice Department to settle the lawsuit, but no progress was reported in the negotiations, according to the department. At the same time, some exhibitors expressed their concern about remaining in the Adam's Mark when a number of members refused to enter the hotel. Meanwhile, the executive office, in consultation with its attorney, concluded that the OAH could move all its annual meeting sessions, registration, and book exhibits out of the Adam's Mark without formally breaking the contract. As a result, the executive board issued a statement on February 14 stating that, "in an effort to have a scholarly meeting in a way that accommodates all members," the OAH would move all its public meeting activities from the Adam's Mark hotel to another site in St. Louis. On February 16-18, the OAH executive director and a staff assistant toured St. Louis to examine alternative sites. They met with historians, university officials, hoteliers, and members of the city's political and business establishment. Based on that visit, the executive board determined that Saint Louis University was the best location to hold the meeting since it could provide room on its campus to house all OAH activities, was convenient to downtown, and had a space large enough to house all the book exhibitors and the registration area. On February 21, OAH announced Saint Louis University as host of the 2000 annual meeting. Exactly one month later, the U.S. Department of Justice, the NAACP, and the Florida attorney-general announced that they had settled with the Adam's Mark Hotel. The hotel agreed to pay $8 million dollars to the plaintiffs and to four historically black colleges and universities in Florida. An independent group, Project Equality, would monitor the hotel company to insure that it did not continue any of the racially discriminatory practices of which it has been accused. The NAACP then called off its nationwide boycott of the hotel chain. Amid trees in blossom and in perfect spring weather, the OAH annual meeting took place on the scheduled dates at the Saint Louis University campus. Approximately 1,875 people attended, 130 more than the previous year's conference. In addition to the regular program, a plenary session on politicization and scholarly societies and a lecture by OAH former president George Fredrickson on comparative racism were held on the opening night. A midday rally to "Make Racism History" was held on Friday in the Luther Ely Smith Park opposite to the old federal courthouse where the Dred Scott case was first heard. That evening approximately 300 historians and St. Louis residents, led by the Albany (GA) Movement Museum Freedom Singers, walked an 11-block "candlelight" March Against Racism from the Adam's Mark Hotel to the Christ Church Cathedral where President David Montgomery delivered his presidential address. When the executive board decided to move the meeting out of the hotel, it also declared that OAH would not pay Adam's Mark anything for moving the meeting. In fact, the move cost OAH over $90,000--which included rental of the university facilities, creation of an elaborate shuttle bus system, the transformation of a recreation center's basketball courts into a registration and book exhibit hall, as well as preliminary legal fees. But OAH members made contributions to a special St. Louis Fund that eventually covered the entire $90,000+ cost of the move. In late summer 2000, the Adam's Mark Hotel sued OAH for $100,000, the cost of the meeting rooms that the organization never used. OAH in turn countersued the hotel for the cost of moving the meeting claiming that the hotel breached its implied obligation to provide hospitality to its guests. In delaying its settlement with the Justice Department Adam's Mark forced OAH to move the meeting since a number of members refused to enter the Adam's Mark Hotel at least until a settlement was reached and they could be assured of fair and equal treatment for all. When Adam's Mark sued OAH they did so in the federal district court in Lincoln, Nebraska, where the OAH is legally incorporated, rather than St. Louis. The OAH attorney requested a change of venue to St. Louis; a federal judge agreed and ordered the trial moved to St. Louis where it was originally scheduled to begin in January 2002. It was then delayed to April and then finally October 2002. In the meantime, a federal appellate judge nullified the Justice Department settlement with Adam's Mark arguing that the settlement could not be certified as a class action. So the five original plaintiffs brought suit against the hotel on their own behalf and their trial was scheduled for November 2001. The NAACP at its annual meeting in July 2001 renewed its call for a nationwide boycott of the Adam's Mark chain. Adam's Mark immediately sued the NAACP charging the association with defamation and interfering with the hotel's right to do business. The hotel asked the federal court to halt the NAACP's call for a boycott. The federal court denied the hotel's request to stop the boycott arguing that such action would violate the First Amendment. A few days later Adam's Mark dropped its lawsuit against NAACP. Five days later on 11 August the NAACP launched a 24-city picket of Adam's Mark facilities. Over two dozen organizations that had contracts for upcoming meetings at Adam's Mark hotels canceled their meetings. The renewed boycott and subsequent cancellations led to negotiations between the NAACP and Adam's Mark and in December a settlement was reached which ended the NAACP boycott. In return Adam's Mark agreed not to pursue claims against any group that had canceled its contract with the hotel. Since OAH did not formally break its contract with Adam's Mark, it did not want the settlement to include its case against the organization. The NAACP, however, insisted that any settlement must include an agreement that Adam's Mark would drop its suit against OAH. The NAACP prevailed, and, on 3 December 2001, the Adam's Mark Hotel agreed to dismiss "all pending claims" against OAH. OAH is proud of the stand it took in 2000. The OAH executive board has adopted a new set of site selection policies which will help insure that a hotel's discrimination record will be examined before any contract is signed. The OAH executive office has contacted local branches of the NAACP, union locals, and historians at nearby universities as it evaluates hotel facilities for annual meetings four and five years in the future. OAH has inserted clauses into its hotel contracts that allow the organization to break the contract without penalty should the hotel or the city, county, or state in which it is located be sued for discrimination of any type. The 2000 annual meeting in St. Louis provided OAH an unparalleled opportunity to address the issue of racial inequality. It also provided American historians an opportunity to carry the story of America's past out of the lecture hall and the hotel conference room to the larger public. |