We Met in St. Louis
David Montgomery
The St. Louis convention of the OAH was a resounding success. Eighteen-hundred and seventy-five people participated in lively discussions of new research and writings, teaching methods, public history, and problems facing the profession, while enjoying memorable tours of the region's historic sites, all in an atmosphere of conviviality, amplified by sunny spring weather. It took an effort to remember that only two months earlier the OAH had faced the prospect of a small gathering seething with animosity, or perhaps no convention at all. During those intervening days, however, members and officers of the OAH, scores of historians and other citizens of St. Louis and its vicinity, and a prodigiously hardworking and creative OAH staff, pulled together a memorable convention, one that has revitalized our organization and its bonds with the public at large.
It was in December, well afterthe program had been completedby the OAH Program Committee, the National Council on Public History (NCPH), and the Missouri Conference on History (MCH), and four years after the OAH had contracted with the Adam's Mark hotel for the convention site, that the Department of Justice charged the hotel with racist mistreatment of African American guests, in violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The charges seconded those already filed by guests of the Daytona Beach branch, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the Attorney General of Florida. After months of investigation, the Department had expanded its accusations of discrimination to include six Adam's Mark hotels, among them the headquarters hotel in St. Louis.
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The executive board quickly agreed on basic principles, which informed its various actions during the next three months. One was that the OAH would not meet under circumstances that made any members feel unwelcome or unwilling to participate because of racial discrimination. The second was that we should not simply walk away from racism but should challenge it publicly. The third was that we would not cancel the contract with Adam's Mark, because to do so could expose the organization to a penalty possibly equal to one-third or even one-half our annual budget.
These principles reflected decisions made half a century ago by our progenitor, the Mississippi Valley Historical Association. Between 1951 and 1954 the Association had engaged in often acrimonious debates over the question of whether or not it should meet in hotels which barred African American members from attending. President Merle Curti initiated the debate by announcing in 1951 that he would not deliver his presidential address in a New Orleans hotel that accepted only white guests. Eventually, a referendum of the members was followed by a decision of the executive committee never to meet where black members were not admitted to all the facilities of the hotel. It reached that decision one month before the Supreme Court handed down its 1954 ruling in Brown v. Board of Education.
In January 2000 discrimination by hotels had long been forbidden by law. Our members were astounded and many of them irate to learn that the first federal prosecution for violation of that 1964 law ever undertaken against a hotel involved the very one where the convention was scheduled to meet. Unlike our precursors in the 1950s, however, members of the OAH were virtually unanimous in repudiating offensive and oppressive treatment based on race. But that was not the only difference: this year we had but three months in which to decide and execute an appropriate course of action, and a contract was already in force.
The executive board sent a letter to Fred Kummer, Jr., owner of the Adam's Mark, calling upon him to promptly reach a negotiated settlement of the charges, with guarantees against racist practices in the future, thus providing an accommodating environment for our forthcoming convention. Failing such an agreement, the OAH would publicize its protest against racism, create a special committee to act upon any charges brought against the hotel during our convention, and make no future agreements with the hotel chain.
Kummer's only response was to proclaim that he was committed to diversity. Having scheduled a meeting with OAH representatives on 8 February, he canceled the meeting, while hotel trade magazines floated a false announcement that an agreement with the government was at hand. Many members then wrote personally to the Adam's Mark, urging it to settle. During these same days, an increasing number of scheduled convention participants announced that they would not take part in any activities held in the Adam's Mark. Members who declared that any course of action other than cancellation of the contract was tantamount to accommodating racism, vigorously organized support for their position.
Then a break appeared in the clouds: Saint Louis University offered us the facilities of its campus for any or all activities of the convention. The turning point came 16-18 February, when Executive Director Lee Formwalt and OAH graduate assistant Damon Freeman visited St. Louis and found welcome mats rolled out everywhere. They easily settled on Saint Louis University as the most accessible and accommodating alternative site for our convention. The local Convention Special Events and Publicity Committee, headed by Kathy Corbett and Leslie Brown, had converted itself into a large action committee of St. Louis citizens, which set to work planning convention activities and rallies protesting racism. After hearing Formwalt testify, the Board of Aldermen placed city facilities and the convention bureau at our disposal. And the St. Louis Post Dispatch initiated a series of editorials commending the action of the OAH.
Our course of action was then clear. The OAH decided to keep its contract with the Adam's Mark, while it moved all official activities out of that hotel to other locations. Most sessions that had not already been scheduled in public sites around the city by the NCPH and the MCH were transferred to Saint Louis University, as were publishers' book exhibits. The presidential address and awards ceremony were held in the splendor of Christ Church Cathedral, by invitation of the Episcopal diocese. Shuttle busses were hired to move participants about the city. The St. Louis committee organized public rallies and a grand procession against racism, with OAH support and participation.
A week before our convention assembled, the Adam's Mark finally reached a settlement with the Department of Justice, providing for $8 million in compensation to aggrieved guests and others and for outside supervision of future practices. Proud of its role in helping bring about this historic agreement, members of the OAH who came to St. Louis were doubly proud of their own commitment to the organization and its principles. That commitment made possible civil scholarly discussion. It also forecast a future that finds the OAH in closer rapport with its increasingly diverse membership and also with this country's interested public.