MYRTLE BEACH, SC (WBTW) — The NAACP is requesting for a court to amend its judgement on the organization’s lawsuit against the City of Myrtle Beach to prevent the city to stop using bike loops for future events.
The request, filed Dec. 22 in the United States District Court District of South Carolina Florence Division, comes after a jury decided earlier this month that while it found racial motivation in the city’s Black Bike Week plan, the city would have taken the same actions if race was not considered.
The new request argues that racial motivation is likely to impact future event operation plans, and said the same plan has continued to be used.
The injunction would bar the city “from continuing to engage in the challenged forms of discriminatory conduct” and to “prevent repeated occurrences of discriminatory conduct in the future.”
The NAACP is entitled to injunctive relief because the jury found racial motivation in the city’s Black Bike Week plan, according to the request.
News13 has reached out to the city for comment.
The local branch of the NAACP filed the original race discrimination suit alleging the city and police discriminate against African-American tourists.
The group alleged Black Bike Week has been met with opposition and resistance and is treated differently than Harley Week, which is an annual event in the same area.
“The city does not implement a formal traffic plan for Harley Week and the mostly white participants are essentially able to travel around the Myrtle Beach area just as they would on any other day of the year,” the lawsuit claimed.
The city does not implement a formal traffic plan for Harley Week, for example. However, during Black Bike Week, Ocean Boulevard is usually reduced to a single lane of one-way traffic. And all motorists entering Ocean Boulevard are forced into a 23-mile loop that has just one exit.
