Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/187632
•pg_42-55__BMT_pg3-58 9/25/13 12:28 AM Page 53 year was 1993. President Bill Clinton was sworn into office for his first term. Top movies of that year include Jurassic Park, and two Denzel Washington films, Philadelphia and The Pelican Brief. Janet Jackson's "That's the Way Love Goes" and Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" were at the top of the music charts. Movie ticket prices averaged $4.14 and gas was $1.16 a gallon. Wow, that seems like eons ago. That same year marked the debut of Black Meetings and Tourism and oh, what a marvelous journey it's been. Over the next few issues we will celebrate our 20th anniversary with a look back to our humble beginnings and those of our industry partners, some, whose arrival on the scene predates BM&T. Most of us know the story of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Medgar Evers, Malcolm X or the heroic Congressman John Lewis, Freedom Rider Hank Thomas (himself a hotel owner) or Rosa Parks. For these are the stories chronicled in our history books. Yet there were many others who blazed a trail long after the lights dimmed on the Civil The Rights Movement. It can be argued, and appropriately so that the Civil Rights Movement never dimmed, but moved into a different phase. For BM&T it was the pursuit of inclusion and economic opportunity. Readers of BM&T are familiar with the National Coalition of Black Meeting Planners (NCBMP). It might be the oldest AfricanAmerican organization in travel, tourism and hospitality, if you exclude the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, started by A. Phillip Randolph back in 1925, and the now defunct International Travel Agents Society (ITAS) launched in the '50s by Henderson Travels' Freddye and Jake Henderson. The NCBMP was founded in 1983 by Kermit Hall, who would become the first chairman; Howard F. Mills, Sr., president; HOWARD F MILLS Oliver Childs, vice president; Lillie Van Landingham, vice president; Sylvia Thomas, secretary; and George Turner, treasurer. The NCBMP was established as a nonprofit dedicated primarily to the training needs of African-American association executives, meeting planners and hospitality professionals. One of NCBMP's primary goals was to leverage the economic wealth of the AfricanAmerican meeting and convention business to advocate for more opportunities within the industry. During those early years, the NCBMP held their meetings at the National Urban League offices in New York City. Known to its members and the industry as "The Coalition," the first conference was held at the JW Marriott in Washington DC and was attended by Forty-two people. The hotel's general manager, John M. Dixon was the only Black GM at the time. Dixon went on to become a college professor at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore. At the time of The Coalition founding, there was one Black-owned hotel in the United States (two if you included the B M & T ••• September/October 2013 ••• www.blackmeetingsandtourism.com 53