NAACP Out of Bounds in Context

Part 2

In Part 1 of this assessment, we examined the legal and political context that produced the NAACP’s “Out of Bounds” campaign and the structural limitations it faces. The campaign calls on Black athletes to withhold their labor from flagship universities in states that have moved to dismantle Black voting representation following the Supreme Court’s ruling in Louisiana v. Callais (2026). To overcome a collective action problem, and the limitations of today’s media climate, will it shift to a focus on the general tourism economy?

The Economic Impact of the Visitor Economy

Between direct spending (hotels, food, transport, tickets), indirect effects (supply chain spending by event organizers and venues) and induced effects (spending by employees of those businesses), the eight targeted states are tourism-dependent economies (Tennessee, Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas, and Georgia). This industry generates hundreds of billions of dollars annually in direct spending, with large national conferences routinely producing tens of millions of dollars in local economic impact and reducing household tax burdens across the states. Tourism and related events rank among the top four industries in six of the eight states and as the single largest industry in South Carolina, ranking above manufacturing, finance and agriculture (Dean Runyan Associates, “Economic Impact of Travel in South Carolina,” 2024). In Mississippi, tourism contributes an estimated $18.1 billion to the economy, roughly 14–15 percent of the state’s gross domestic product and, by Senator Roger Wicker‘s own designation, the state’s fourth-largest industry. Each household in Mississippi would need to be taxed an additional $1,015 to replace the visitor-generated taxes received by state and local governments in 2024.

A large segment of this economy is driven by Black and other diverse-led professional associations, civil rights organizations, Greek-letter fraternities and sororities, and cultural festivals. These gatherings represent hundreds of millions of dollars in discretionary, movable economic activity, spending that host cities actively compete to attract, and that can be redirected when the political climate is unwelcoming.

Some have modest individual impact, such as family reunions. Others stand out in their impact:

The Essence Fest has become one of the most economically significant cultural events in the South. Since 2022, the festival has produced nearly $1 billion in cumulative economic impact for Louisiana. Attendees spend an average of $3,135 per visit. In 2024, it generated $346.3 million for the New Orleans economy, creating 2,642 jobs and $113.7 million in income for local workers.

The NAACP’s annual national convention is a consistent economic driver for its host cities, typically drawing 8,000 to 11,000 attendees and generating approximately $10–$12.5 million in direct economic activity per event.

The Divine Nine convention ecosystem generates hundreds of millions of dollars per biennial cycle. Alpha Kappa Alpha’s (AKA) national boulé, for instance, generated nearly $60 million for Atlanta in a single week in 2016. AKA organizes its roughly 350,000 members into regions, each holding its own annual conference drawing between 4,000 and 8,000 attendees and generating approximately $40 to $60 million per year in aggregate.

The U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce National Conference, the largest gathering of its kind, draws approximately 1,500 to 2,000 attendees annually.

The question of where and with whom to do business has always been a political question for civil rights organizations (What has changed is that general counsels and operations directors now need contractual language to match that reality). Institutional decisions about operational footprint are inseparable from institutional values.

Organizers of Black festivals and cultural events have already demonstrated they can act collectively to redirect their economic impact.

For instance, in 2023, Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity withdrew its national convention from Orlando, Florida, denouncing the state’s hostile policy environment and forgoing nearly $4.6 million in direct economic impact. Visit Lauderdale estimated more than $20 million in lost revenue as a result of convention cancellations by Black organizations, with the economic impact expected to be felt over a three-year period. (Miami Times, Aug. 2023)

As General Counsel at the National Urban League, I saw firsthand how organizations increasingly evaluate human rights climate as part of operational decision-making. Part of my responsibility involved providing contractual flexibility to align those mission-related goals with business objectives. In practice, this flexibility typically takes the form of venue selection clauses that reserve the right to relocate events based on material changes in the host jurisdiction’s legal or policy environment, including changes to voting rights protections or anti-discrimination law. Some organizations negotiate explicit human rights climate provisions; others rely on broader force majeure or changed-circumstances language that achieves the same result without naming specific political triggers. This flexibility may be embedded in governance structures, contractual frameworks, or institutional policy. The cost of negotiating this flexibility upfront is a fraction of the reputational and operational cost of being contractually locked into a politically untenable venue.

The long-term significance of these campaigns may outlast short-term partisan politics, influencing tourism behavior, conference and event bookings, and talent recruitment over several years.

Conclusion

Taken together, the eight states targeted by Out of Bounds host one of the most economically significant concentrations of Black organizational spending in the country. The spending is discretionary and movable. Whether or not the campaign directly changes redistricting policy, it reflects a broader shift in civil rights advocacy toward integrating political representation, economic participation, institutional legitimacy, and reputational risk into a unified strategic framework. In that sense, it may ultimately prove more influential as a political framing mechanism than as a conventional boycott alone. The framing is one that state legislatures are likely to take seriously as a matter of long-term economic governance, regardless of their position on the underlying voting-rights litigation.