Black bike 2023 1st day - Ocean Boulevard Myrtle Beach
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Black Bike Week, also called Atlantic Beach Bikefest,[2] Black Bikers Week,[1] and The Black Pearl Cultural Heritage and Bike Festival,[5] is an annual motorcycle rally in the Myrtle Beach, South Carolina area, held on Memorial Day weekend. Called a "one-of-a-kind event" and "an exhibitionist's paradise" by Jeffrey Gettleman, Black Bike Week is "all about riding, styling and profiling," in the words of Mayor Irene Armstrong of Atlantic Beach, South Carolina.[6]
It is the largest African American motorcycle rally in the US.[7] Attendance has been variously reported as 350,000,[1] 375,000,[7] and as high as 400,000.[3][6] It is considered the third or fourth largest motorcycle rally in the United States.[1] Around 10-15 percent of motorcyclists in the US are women,[8][9] while at major African American motorcycle rallies, such as Black Bike Week or the National Bikers Roundup, women make up close to half of participants.[10]
From 1940 until 2008, Myrtle Beach had also hosted a predominantly white motorcycle rally, called Harley-Davidson Week, also called the spring Carolina Harley-Davidson Dealer's Association (CHDDA) Rally.[11][12] The two rallies have usually run consecutively, and because of unequal city policies such as different traffic rules and greater policing during Black Bike Week, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and individual rally participants have charged, as well as sued, the city government and local businesses with racial discrimination because of different treatment towards the black rally.[13] In 2002 Black Bike week had 375,000 attendees, versus 200,000 for Harley-Davidson Week of the same year.[7][6]
The city of Myrtle Beach has used new ordinances to push the 2009 and 2010 motorcycle events, both black and white, out of the city, where they have been welcomed by other municipalities and businesses, and bikers still came in spite of the official efforts to discourage them.[3] After the 2010 motorcycle events the South Carolina Supreme Court overturned the Myrtle Beach city ordinance requiring all motorcyclists to wear helmets, and four other ordinances.[14]
"Black Bike Week" can also refer to a side event to the motorcycle rally Daytona Beach Bike Week at Daytona Beach, Florida that happens two months earlier, in March. Like the South Carolina event, the Daytona rally also has its origins in racial segregation, when blacks created their own parallel event after being excluded from the main white festival.