Posted on 01/13/2002 7:44:43 AM PST by shuckmaster
The NAACP will begin posting "border patrols" at various entryways into South Carolina within 30 days urging tourists not to stop in the Palmetto State, the civil rights group said Saturday.
"The border patrol is our way of standing at the Georgia and North Carolina borders (and asking) that you not stop, not stay in hotels, and don't buy gas" in South Carolina, said Nelson B. Rivers III, NAACP national field director. "Or better still, that you turn around."
The initiative is part of a plan the group unveiled Saturday to turn up the heat on state leaders in 2002 to completely remove the Confederate flag from the State House grounds.
Tourism officials reached Saturday expressed concern the action could hurt the state's economy, already laboring through a recession.
Rivers said the group will hold a third annual rally at the State House on Jan. 21, in part to protest the flag. The NAACP also will launch a national campaign that uses billboards, flyers, bumper stickers and television to discourage tourism in the state.
South Carolina has been the target of economic sanctions against tourism - at $9 billion a year, the state's largest industry - since 1999. Then, the NAACP began increasing pressure on the Legislature to take the Confederate emblem off the State House.
In what they said was a compromise, lawmakers removed the flag from the atop the State House, and from the Senate and House chambers in July 2000. At the same time, however, they raised a Confederate flag on a pole on the State House's front lawn.
In 1999-2000, tourism officials said the sanctions cost Columbia, Charleston, Myrtle Beach and Hilton Head $10 million in lost revenues. Since the compromise, the impact of the sanctions has waned, those officials have said.
'DISAPPOINTED IN THE DECISION'
However, tourism officials Saturday expressed concern about the NAACP's new plans.
"At Parks, Recreation and Tourism, we're disappointed in the decision to take these further actions," said Marion Edmonds, a spokesman for the state tourism department.
"We felt that the Legislature's decision to take the Confederate flag off the dome and out of the Senate and House chambers was a good-faith effort to resolve the issue."
Edmonds said he was unsure of the impact the new NAACP actions might have. "These are actions that have not been taken before in South Carolina, to my knowledge. We don't know what to expect."
Others expressed concern the actions could hurt the state's economy during a recession.
Tom Sponseller, president of the Hospitality Association of South Carolina, said, "Anything that can hamper tourism, especially in a time like this, could have a severe impact on the overall economy."
Ashby Ward, president of the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce, said: "Right now, I'm angry. It borders on the ridiculous. The legislators from all walks of life settled on this situation in Columbia, and I realize nobody's happy, but it is a compromise. This issue should just be past."
Ward added: "It seems ridiculous in this kind of economy, with the nation focused on this war on terrorism - to drag something from the past out like this is beyond my comprehension."
Spokespersons for Gov. Jim Hodges did not return calls Saturday. House Speaker David Wilkins, R-Greenville, also could not be reached.
S.C. Attorney General Charlie Condon said the civil rights group's plan breaks the law.
"It's an illegal secondary boycott and so on behalf of the state of South Carolina I'm going to be looking into the possibility of bringing a lawsuit against them for monetary damages," Condon said.
In explaining the border patrols, Rivers said NAACP personnel periodically would be stationed at various South Carolina entrances, "with protection," to let travelers know that sanctions are still in place.
Rivers said he will spread the message that economic sanctions are still in place against South Carolina as he delivers speeches across the country over the next 45 days about black history.
"The NAACP has made up its mind," Rivers said at a monthly meeting of the state NAACP in Columbia. "We will not stop until the Confederate flag has been put where it should be - out of sight, out of mind."
The NAACP also has been urging athletes and entertainers to avoid coming to South Carolina. The group said it will continue that effort with fresh energy this year and in years to come.
State NAACP head James Gallman called on national religious leaders, meeting planners, performers, artists, athletes and others to avoid South Carolina. He also asked S.C. residents to honor the boycott by taking their vacations outside the state.
Those were the days swamp fox. Glad you enjoyed the short story and could obviously relate to the scenario.
Well it occurs to me that you fell into the trap by virtue of the fact that you called it "music." Whatever it is, it ain't music. It ain't even an artform as postulated by our media and especially MTV. It is crap. It is garbage. Now Benny Goodman and Nat King Cole knew music.
This is so obvious its sad. Why are the talking heads afraid to point this out?? Will they be called racist?
No,I don't. I'm certain they would see brouchures as a "in your face diss". I don't think talking would be seen in the same light.
Well I am partial to Hilton Head since that is where I met my bride of 28 years. And it is very close to Savannah.
Based upon the premise of their idealouge and their strategy, obviously the NAACP doesn't believe there are any blacks engaged in business in SC.
LOL, seems we both had the same intial reaction.
Too bad Reginald Denny (the truck driver from the LA riots) didn't have the same idea at the time. If I were him I would have kept on truckin' full steam ahead.
You and me both. Been there done that once in my life. Not proud of it but had no choice at the time...and did it in Simca four door sedan...the engine was mounted in the rear.
I had taken some HS friends to my old stomping grounds where I grew up which had been taken over by blacks. It's a weird scenario, but there was this German fortune teller who had a mansion with gardens and pools adjacent to my grandads' property where I was raised. When he died his only son placed his corpse in a casket on the property above earth in a brick tomb. As a child I would go there and ride my bicycle or merely run around in his empty rounded pools and all passing thru the terraces of what once was. And yes, I would visit as haunting and as daunting as it was his brick tomb from time to time to pay homage to what he had built and what once was. It was an incredible place. No place like it that can be fully described proper here and now.
Now on this particular night I took my HS sweetheart of the time and two other HS couples who were with us to show them the tomb of the famed Dewolfee encased there in his small brick shrine surrounded by the now depraved and overgrown and unattended garden like enviroment. A place I had spent my childhood exploring. There was one narrow and overgrown dirt road leading to his former palace. It was overgrown with trees branches vines and such unattended. Btw, his mansion burned completely down the very night he died. Just another weird circumstance of this story.
So we go there and I show them what was his pools and describe for them what was his former mansion and gardens. Sanctimoniously we danced and made jovial about Dewolfees' simplistic brick shrine while consuming a few beers amongst other amenities of the times. And while there, I noticed that someone had broken some of the bricks of his tomb as if they had attempted to peer in. Something as a child I had often thought about doing but thought better of it. Anyway, at the time,I know he was still there encased in this simplistic shrine. Perhaps by now he has been removed for his protection.
Moving on, when we finally had our thrill for the night and decided to depart there was a gang of blacks with bricks, blocks, chains, boards and such blocking our only exit down that narrow overgrown dirt path of a road. Now I have been here before like a deja vu of the past which was why we moved away. But not with responsibility other than myself. Now I had all these folk I was responsible for since I had brought them there. So I backed my Simca up to the far edge of the woods behind me and gave her a running start...yepper, I ran thru. Bricks and rocks came thru all the windows. Every window in my Simca was shattered. When we hit the paved street exiting the property I was on two wheels making the turn out...fortunately we all survived with minor injury from the broken glass caused by these terrorists. True story.
I spent a lot of time shouting at my TV when that happened. You're right, that's exactly what he should have done.
The incident I'm referring to happened years ago. The girl I was dating had a kid sister with a talent for finding herself in the wrong place at the wrong time.
That afternoon she'd managed to get too close to a crowd of the usual malcontents, who were out for a little afternoon rampage. She was surrounded and about to get an ass-whipping. (or worse)
I'd gone down to fetch her out of there in my old Pontiac convertible, and the crowd looked like it sorely needed a little 'tough love'... It was one of those magic moments when the cards play out just right.
The key is to love 'you & yours' a whole Hell of a lot more than you love 'them'. If you get weepy, or philosophical or weak in the knees when that choice has to be made, the hyenas will win.
I can vouch for that.
Right now I'm doin' good just to get out of town, much less travel 2200 miles!
The point I am making is that this is a tactic intended to cow and intimidate. I'm not saying it would with certain people such as yourself, but you know as well as I do that some people will think twice about driving into a NAACP 'roadblock'.
The language they use ('border patrol') suggests to this reader an aggressive stance. They know what this is as well as anybody.
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