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| The 2000 Annual Meeting in St. Louis: A Historical Account | ||
| 2000 Annual Meeting | 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. In a conversation with the OAH executive office, however, Fred Kummer III, son of the Adam's Mark CEO and owner, declared that under no circumstances would the chain accept a settlement in which they admitted guilt to charges of racial discrimination. They also refused to accept a neutral third party appointed by the Justice Department to monitor their compliance with the 1964 Civil Rights Act. 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, will monitor the hotel company to insure that it does not continue any of the racially discriminatory practices of which it has been accused. 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 walked an 11-block March Against Racism from the Adam's Mark Hotel to the Christ Church Cathedral where President David Montgomery delivered his presidential address. The 2000 annual meeting in St. Louis has led the OAH to reexamine its site selection policies for conventions as well as its own efforts to diversify its membership. In many ways the meeting provided historians with an unparalleled opportunity to address the issue of racial inequality in the United States and in their profession. |