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Seniors Urge S.C. Beach Boycott
April 2000
In recent years, an en masse trip to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, has become a pre-Commencement ritual for many Yale seniors. As many as 500 revelers head south to celebrate between the end of finals and the events leading up to Commencement.
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The Confederate battle flag still flies atop the South Carolina capitol.
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But this year, because of a boycott of South Carolina tourism led by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, some seniors are urging their fellow students to stay away from Myrtle Beach. The NAACP called for the boycott because of the continued presence of the Confederate battle flag atop the South Carolina capitol. In February, signs, e-mails, and an op-ed article in the Yale Daily News called on seniors to choose Virginia Beach instead.
Some students object to the strategy on principle, arguing that a tourism boycott hurts even those South Carolinians who oppose the flag. But Rebecca Ingber ’00, one of the campaign’s organizers, says she faces two more practical concerns: Seniors fear they might miss the party if the boycott doesn’t take hold, and a number of them had already put down deposits on rooms in Myrtle Beach before the boycott campaign was launched.
Ingber, who is from New York, says she chose Virginia Beach because “it’s the same kind of beach town as Myrtle Beach, and it’s still in the South, which is important. People should know this is not a boycott of the South.”  |
