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Associated PressYears after racial tensions flared, officials hope the NAACP's convention in Miami Beach is a sign of a new day.
MIAMI - Local leaders hope the NAACP convention opening in Miami Beach this weekend helps erase a decade-old blemish on the community's record on race relations.
In 1990, black leaders led a three-year boycott of tourism in the Miami area after some local officials refused to welcome South African leader Nelson Mandela during his visit to a union convention. Cuban and Jewish leaders had condemned Mandela's links to Fidel Castro and Yasser Arafat.
Now, with the arrival of about 10,000 delegates for South Florida's first convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People since 1980, community leaders see an opportunity to showcase progress on relations between the city's Hispanic, white and black communities.
"This is the most significant event that has happened in Miami-Dade County in terms of race relations since the boycott," said H.T. Smith, a prominent black attorney who led the boycott.
The cost of the boycott was estimated at $50-million. It ended in 1993 with the creation of a partnership to establish the black-run Royal Palm Crowne Plaza hotel in Miami Beach. The partnership also established scholarships for black students interested in the tourism industry while promoting black-owned businesses and greater black representation among nonunion hotel workers.
Some black leaders say the city is still failing to adequately address underlying racial tensions.
The partnership "was a stopgap measure to resolve a crisis rather than an investment in a long-term agenda that would lead to the creation of wealth among blacks," attorney George Knox said.
Miami-Dade Mayor Alex Penelas has said he plans to apologize for the Mandela snub when he welcomes delegates Monday. Some local black leaders are skeptical of that decision, because Penelas is a U.S. Senate candidate. But he says the apology is sincere.
"It's too important of a moment in our history, and I think it's in that context that I will let the delegates know how far we've come since 1990 and how proud I am of them being here," Penelas said.
NAACP chairman Julian Bond called Penelas' decision "an important statement representing the city and we will welcome and thank him profusely."
"Our people in Miami and Florida assured us that times had changed and relations had changed and improved, and therefore we felt free to consider Miami and to come back," Bond said.
Dario Moreno, a Florida International University political science professor, said the convention will underscore the growing political power of the region's Haitian, Jamaican and West Indies communities. Delegates plan to gather for a Caribbean summit Wednesday to address the relations between blacks and the Caribbean community.
"You can't help but notice anywhere in Miami that a black face doesn't mean he's from Georgia, Alabama or North Florida. It's just as likely that he's from Haiti, Jamaica or the Dominican Republic," Moreno said.
The convention also will attract several contenders for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination.
Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, Sens. Bob Graham of Florida and John Kerry of Massachusetts, former Illinois Sen. Carol Moseley Braun and Al Sharpton have all agreed to appear Monday at a candidates' forum, NAACP officials said.
Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio is unsure whether he will attend. Rep. Richard Gephardt of Missouri and Sens. John Edwards of North Carolina and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut have decided not to go because of scheduling conflicts, their staffs said.
President Bush, touring Africa this week, declined an invitation.