Jul. 15, 2003 - As the NAACP holds its 94th annual convention in Miami this week, the question remains: Are boycotts, a tactic used for decades by the nation's oldest civil rights organization, still effective? 

In many cases they are, experts say. 

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has led two major boycotts since the late 1990s: a South Carolina tourism boycott that began in January 2000 and a two-year boycott of the Adam's Mark hotel chain that was settled in 2001. 

In addition, the organization settled a major lawsuit a decade ago over a boycott of Miami that began after some officials refused to welcome South African leader Nelson Mandela during his visit to a union convention. On Monday, Miami-Dade County Mayor Alex Penelas apologized to the NAACP for the 1990 snub, which was a response to Mandela's links to Cuban President Fidel Castro and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. 

Robert Brown, an assistant professor of political science and African-American studies at Emory University, said the majority of NAACP boycotts against large businesses work because "most companies don't want to be regarded as racist." Some successful high-profile boycotts have included historic civil rights protests, such as the Montgomery bus boycott of the 1950s, and the NAACP's lawsuit and ban against Denny's restaurants in the 1990s, Brown said. 

"They are effective when they are well-organized and when there is the perception of obvious and clear injustice," Brown said. "They are powerful when they are used judiciously." 

But some say boycotts lose their edge when they do not have a clear goal or when they continue over several years without modifications. 

Marion Edmonds, a spokesman for the South Carolina Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism, said the NAACP boycott of the state's $14 million-a-year tourism industry --- launched in an effort to force legislators to remove a Confederate flag from Statehouse property --- started out strong but dwindled after a July 2000 compromise: Officials removed the Rebel banner from a flagpole atop the state Capitol but placed it at a Confederate soldiers' memorial on the Capitol grounds. 

"After the flag came down [from the Capitol dome] most of the conventions and meeting planners took that as a good-faith measure," Edmonds said. 

But the South Carolina NAACP, with backing from national organization leaders, continued its boycott because they wanted the flag removed entirely. South Carolina NAACP President James Gallman said recently the boycott will continue until legislators remove the flag from state property supported by taxpayers' dollars. 

Boycotts also can have unintended consequences. Black-owned businesses, for example, were among those most hurt by the sanctions because they cater to African-Americans, many of whom have stayed away because of the boycott, Edmonds said. 

"The comments we heard the most were from African-American-owned businesses," Edmonds said. "They were the ones who talked the most about how the economic boycott was affecting their businesses." 

John P. Relman, a Washington civil rights attorney who helped represent the NAACP in a lawsuit against the Adam's Mark hotel chain, said some boycotts fail when they do not have clear goals and a clear "exit strategy." 

But Relman said well-organized boycotts are very effective when targeting a specific perceived problem of discrimination. 

The Adam's Mark boycott began in 1999 after Black College Reunion participants complained of discrimination at one of the chain's hotels in Daytona Beach, Fla. Relman and NAACP attorneys settled the case for $2 million in late 2001 and immediately lifted the boycott. 

"You can have a very successful boycott if you have clearly defined goals," said Relman, managing director of Relman & Associates in Washington. "A boycott can drive down stock prices and affect market capitalization of a public company. . . . I think it depends on who you're boycotting and it very much depends on who's being affected." 

Not all tourism and business boycotts are led by large groups such as the NAACP. 

The Coalition for a Just Cincinnati --- which helped organize a boycott of city businesses after police shot a 19-year-old unarmed black man on April 7, 2001 --- and two other local groups pulled together the boycott without leadership from national organizations such as the NAACP. The sanctions have turned away Bill Cosby, Wynton Marsalis and the annual Coors Light Jazz Festival from the city, said coalition co-chairwoman Amanda Mayes. 

"After the unrest in the streets, we decided we should have our issues addressed in a more structured and peaceful means," Mayes said. "People who had strong feelings about what was going on saw the need for an organized movement." 

Staff researcher Jennifer Ryan contributed to this article. 

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(c) 2003, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.