BALTIMORE, Md., Jul 31, 2001 / Kweisi Mfume, president & CEO, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and Julian Bond, chairman, the NAACP National Board of Directors, today said the association is going ahead with the planned picketing and protests of Adam's Mark hotels in North Carolina and nationwide.

Mfume said: "The economic sanctions against Adam's Mark represents the last effort to try to get the hotel chain to end discriminatory actions at some of its properties. The boycott will continue until Adam's Mark publicly apologizes for the mistreatment of college students at their Daytona Beach, Fla., facility in 1999 and until the hotel puts into place verifiable policies and procedures to prevent future discrimination by its staff and managers."

"Only the NAACP Board of Directors or its Executive Committee has the power to engage the organization in a boycott; only these groups have the power to suspend or end it, and they have not done so, said Bond. "The boycott is national in scope and not selectively enforced to fit the convenience of any group," said.

Although the hotel chain is currently operating under a consent decree entered into with the Department of Justice, it has refused to date to publicly acknowledge its wrongful conduct or to settle the remaining discrimination actions against it.

In 1999, the NAACP, the Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights, and three private law firms filed a lawsuit on behalf of several guests at the Daytona Beach property. The plaintiffs allege they were forced to prepay for rooms and amenities; wear non-detachable, neon-orange identification wristbands; and enter the hotel through barricades staffed by a heavy police presence during the Black College Reunion weekend. The plaintiffs also allege that the hotel refused to allow its African American guests to unload their luggage in its covered entryway and refused to rent to them anything but the most basic rooms, reserving its better rooms for employees and police officers staying at the hotel.

After the guests filed suit, the Florida Attorney General moved to intervene on the guests' side, and the U.S. Department of Justice filed a separate lawsuit of its own arising out of the Daytona Beach incident. In March 2000, the St. Louis-based company agreed to settle these lawsuits and would have paid out over $8 million and implemented anti-discrimination programs and training, but the federal judge hearing the case declined to approve the proposed class-action settlement. Since then, Adam's Mark has refused to support the settlement on appeal and has refused to proceed in good faith to settle the State of Florida's and the guests' case, which remains pending.

Adam's Mark did, however, enter into a settlement with the Department of Justice that resulted in the court's entry of a consent decree. Although the hotel agreed to undertake certain training of its employees and to be subject to monitoring for compliance with the terms of the decree, Adam's Mark refused to admit that it had committed discrimination or to apologize for its conduct.

Earlier this month, the Florida Commission on Human Relations concluded that there was reasonable cause to believe that Adam's Mark had unlawfully discriminated against African American guests during the 1999 Black College Reunion. The announcement by the Commission, coupled with the failure of Adam's Mark to negotiate in good faith a settlement of the lawsuit brought by the NAACP, prompted the NAACP to renew its earlier call for economic sanctions against the chain on July 11, 2001.

The hotel company responded by threatening to sue the NAACP if it did not call off the boycott and, although the NAACP pointed out to Adam's Mark that its protest is fully protected by the Constitution, the hotel company today filed suit.

Founded in 1909, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is the nation's oldest and largest civil rights organization. Its half-million adult and youth members throughout the United States and the world are the premier advocates for civil rights in their communities, conducting voter mobilization and monitoring equal opportunity in the public and private sectors.