Black Bike Week: Return Of “Black Codes?”

S.C. are approving new laws aimed at controlling what they’ve publicly described as an “uncontrollable” event.

So … yeah … what’s the point of that again?

Nonetheless, two ordinances passed by Myrtle Beach, S.C. city council give police sweeping powers to define black biker week as an “extraordinary event,” and to further “define riot and unlawful assembly, and declare unlawful the participation in same and the failure to disperse.”

Coastal journalist Paul Gable of Grand Strand Daily is concerned the ordinances could have the unintended consequence of suppressing political speech.

“It applies to both public and private property,” Gable wrote. “Therefore a protest on private property could be ordered to disperse if the police don’t like what is being said.”

Not only that, Gable says there’s a racial element to the laws as well that evokes a frightening historical precedent.

“With three or more persons acting together considered a riot, the ordinance is reminiscent of the infamous Black Codes of 150 years ago,” he wrote

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