News of the Organization

Slate of Candidates: 2002 OAH Election

As OAH prepares for its day in court next January to face claims by the Adam's Mark Hotel for over $100,000, NAACP President Kweise Mfume and Chairman Julian Bond announced at that organization's national convention in July a renewal of the boycott against the Adam's Mark hotel chain originally called for in February 2000. NAACP is currently training regional directors to prepare branch presidents and members for nationwide picketing of Adam's Mark (beginning 11 August) at its twenty-five hotel locations, as well as its national headquarters in St. Louis, and its national sales office in Washington, DC. In the meantime, Adam's Mark filed suit against the NAACP on 27 July to prevent the nationwide boycott and picketing. NAACP President Mfume reiterated that "the mission of the NAACP is to speak truth to power, and we will not be silenced by this heavy-handed attempt to shut off public debate. The First Amendment was designed to protect against just this kind of censorship."

Full coverage of the Adam's Mark situation and OAH preparations for the January trial will appear in the November OAH Newsletter.

April 2001 Executive Board Meeting, Los Angeles

At its 2001 spring meeting the OAH Executive Board took the following actions:

Approved the minutes of the 21-22 October 2000 Executive Board meeting in Baltimore, Maryland.

• Decided to send a letter of thanks to Senator Robert C. Byrd for his role in securing $50 million in Department of Education funds for the improvement of American history education in 2001 and his efforts to secure an additional $100 million in 2002.
• Approved an exchange between the OAH Magazine of History and the National Council for History Education publication History Matters beginning in June 2001. OAH members will receive History Matters and NCHE members will receive the OAH Magazine of History.
• Decided to use $10,000 in the general endowment fund for the new Capital Campaign.
• Approved the OAH budget for the 2002 fiscal year.
• Authorized splitting the Ray Allen Billington Award fund into two separate funds: one-third for the biennial Billington Award, and two-thirds for the annual Frederick Jackson Turner Award.
• Approved the appointments of Kathleen M. Brown, Kevin Gaines, and John Kuo Wei Tchen to the JAH editorial board.
• Agreed that OAH should produce minimum standards for best practices concerning part-time and adjunct faculty.
• Created a permanent ex-officio position for the chief historian of the National Park Service on the OAH National Park Service committee.
• Decided to renew, for three years, the contract for the McKinzie Symposium, an annual conference held at the University of Missouri-Kansas City in memory of Professor Dick McKinzie for the purpose of advancing diversity and tolerance through history education. The president of the OAH is a main presenter at the Symposium which features plenary sessions, concurrent workshops, and panel discussions based around the theme of the meeting, which changes yearly.
  
• Approved an increase in the size of the Community College Committee from four to eight members.
• Authorized preliminary planning for the OAH/Oxford Encyclopedia project at a meeting in Chicago in May, to be funded by Oxford University Press, and attended by representatives of both OAH and OUP.
• Agreed to cosponsor the Talking History radio program, produced by Creighton University and hosted by historian Bryan Le Beau.

Report of OAH Committees

For the latest reports of OAH service committees, please point your web browser to: <http://www.oah.org/activities/>.