The Organization of American Historians, the National Council on Public History, and the Missouri Conference on History have together planned an outstanding program for March 30 to April 2 in St. Louis. Informative and provocative sessions have been scheduled to discuss new research and varied interpretations of North American history from pre-Columbian times to the present. Pursuant to the guiding theme, "The United States and the Wider World," the convention will offer panels, presentations, and tours which deal with new scholarship, teaching at all academic levels, public history, and the St. Louis region. There are also numerous sessions devoted to career prospects and training for graduate students.

The Annual Meeting will be based at the Adam's Mark Hotel. OAH members have received preregistration forms with the printed program.

News that African American guests at the Daytona Beach hotel of the Adam's Mark chain have accused the hotel management of racial discrimination have now cast an ominous shadow over our meeting. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the United States Department of Justice charged the hotel in separate lawsuits with violation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act during last year's Black College Reunion "by placing minorities in less desirable rooms than white guests or segregating them to the least desirable areas of the hotel." According to a Justice Department press release, "The complaint also alleges that the chain charged minorities higher room rates and different prices for goods and services than those charged to white guests, in addition to applying stricter security, reservation, and identification requirements."

Officials of the Adam's Mark chain, which manages 21 hotels in 13 states, have adamantly defended the Daytona Beach branch on all counts and predicted that the hotel will be vindicated in court. The Washington Post reported on 17 December 1999, that the Department of Justice had filed suit in court, after months of futile efforts to persuade the Adam's Mark to implement "a policy of nondiscrimination, self-testing by the company, and agreement to some federal monitoring mechanism of the new practices."

The Department also noted that this is the first time it has ever taken a hotel chain to court for discrimination against guests. Subsequent investigations have led the Department to add charges of discrimination at hotel branches in Philadelphia, Winston-Salem, Denver, and Indianapolis to the case. The Attorney General's Office of Florida has also joined the class action suit as an intervenor, enabling it to enforce the state's Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act against the hotel.

Policy of the OAH
It is the policy of the OAH "to be guided in its selection of cities as annual meeting sites, as well as in the conduct of the annual meeting itself, by the principle of non-discriminatory treatment of all OAH members and participants." Although the charges against the Adam's Mark Hotels are not scheduled to be heard in court until next year (2001), the Executive Board has been especially disturbed by the hotel management's posture of denial and defiance. The behavior of the management of the Adam's Mark stands in sharp contrast to that of the officers of CompUSA, Texaco, and Denny's, all of which ultimately responded to charges of discrimination by carefully investigating them and publicly repudiating and correcting offensive practices where they were found. That response is what one would expect from a law-abiding firm.

Moreover, the charges against the Adam's Mark and the management's response threaten to disrupt the annual meeting and inflict heavy financial loss on the OAH. The grim reality is that the OAH cannot now cancel its contract with the Adam's Mark without incurring a penalty of $425,000--one-third of the OAH annual budget.

It is also important to know that President Kweisi Mfume of the NAACP announced in December that, while his organization was continuing its lawsuit against the hotel, it was "not at this time calling for additional economic actions" against the Adam's Mark Hotels.

These considerations led the Executive Board of the OAH to decide to proceed with the scheduled annual meeting in St. Louis, with the Adam's Mark Hotel as headquarters. But we will proceed under conditions, which I as President have already transmitted by letter to Fred S. Kummer, President and CEO of the Adam's Mark Hotels. Those conditions are as follows:

1. If the management of the Adam's Mark Hotels fails to reach an agreement on remedial steps with the Department of Justice and the NAACP before 10 March 2000 (i.e., before the scheduled OAH officers' pre-convention budget review meeting) the Executive Board will bring before the business meeting of the convention a resolution asserting that no future annual meetings of the OAH should be held at Adam's Mark Hotels.
   
   
2. If remedial steps have not been taken before the annual meeting, I will appoint an ad hoc committee authorized to receive and investigate any charges of discrimination by the St. Louis Adam's Mark Hotel during the meeting and to report such charges to the Executive Board and through the board to the Adam's Mark management.
   
   
3. If the remedial steps have not been taken before the annual meeting, the OAH will place an advertisement in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and appropriate notices in national publications informing meeting participants of the steps the OAH has taken to make clear its own position and to secure them against possible discrimination at the meeting.
   

Because such advertisements are very expensive, I am also taking this occasion to issue an appeal to OAH members for special contributions of money to help defray the cost. Please send whatever money you can to the Special Fund, Organization of American Historians, 112 North Bryan Avenue, Bloomington, IN 47408. Please mark any checks "Special Fund." If it should turn out that a settlement has been reached and advertisements are not needed, we will gladly return the contributions to the donors.

Let us hold a splendid convention in St. Louis and repudiate any revival of discrimination in the year 2000, while continuing to expand the contribution of the OAH to the historical profession.