Touami Pride
Professor Gubins
Community Conflict
17 April 2018
Black Bike Week
Black Bike Week, is an annual motorcycle rally held in the Myrtle Beach, South Carolina area, held on Memorial Day weekend. It is a week meant for festivities with motorcycle racing, concerts, parties, and street festivals. But some locals have claimed that local officials of myrtle beach and police purposefully hurt black bike week with strict traffic regulations. The people are asking a judge to stop Myrtle Beach from using a 23-mile long one-way traffic loop only put in place during Black Bike Week over Memorial Day weekend. While the loop is not in place the week before when mostly white bikers come to Harley Week. There are two motorcycle festivals held in Myrtle Beach each year. Bikefest, held during Memorial Day weekend, is often referred to as “Black Bike Week” because of its predominantly African-American attendees and Harley Week, primarily attended by white motorcyclists, is held in mid-May, before Bikefest.
The NAACP lawsuit claims that the city and Myrtle Beach police discriminate against the black motorcyclists who attend Bikefest by putting in place a strict traffic plan for riders. Vehicles that enter Ocean Boulevard, a beachside road that is popular with festival goers, must enter a 23-mile loop at night. That loop can take up to six hours to complete on a busy Saturday night during Bikefest. No traffic plan are put in place for Harley Week, so Harley Week is more accessible to visitors. It seems to b...
