McGraw, you've got it mostly right about the legal issues,but...

NAACP is one of three parties (the other two are the US Dept of Justice, and the State of Florida) suing Adams Mark over events which transpired at the Daytona Beach, FL. hotel during spring break 1199.

The lawsuit the NAACP was involved in is what is known as a class-action lawsuit. Adams Mark attempted to settle the three separate lawsuits with ONE settlement for $8 million, but the judge sitting for the NAACP case refused to approve the settlement. The legal reasons surrounding this are profoundly complex, and have to do with the different sorts of remedies being pursued by the different plaintiffs, ie the US Dept. of Justice and State of Florida are seeking remedies under civil rights statutes. A class action suit is generally for monetary damages and indemnity against future claims.

The original legal actions were taken on the one hand, and the political action, the boycott, was taken on the other. They weren't perfectly concurrent, and so the whole argument about when FA made the reservation is a specious one.

While the approval of the settlement offer from Adams Mark was awaiting action by the judge, the NAACP, as I understand it, called off the boycott. That may have been something they agreed to do in settlement negotiations. When the judge refused to approve the settlement, Adams Mark took their offer off the table, and the NAACP reinstated the boycott.

Adams Mark then filed a suit against the NAACP, to get an injuction blocking them from picketing and reinstating their economic boycott. The judge in that case ruled last Friday that an injunction would be a violation of the NAACP's First Amendment rights. That decision was in favor of the NAACP.

Over the weekend, in the wake of that decision, the NAACP began setting up pickets again, and getting the word out that the boycott was on again.

US Dept of Justice vs. Adams Mark, and State of Florida vs. Adams Mark, have not yet gone to trial.

FA hasn't said on what date the reservations were made, so it is impossible to know where in the above series of events that action fell. As someone also pointed out, none of us is privvy to the damage control plans of the EC last weekend, and so attempting to assign motives and intentions is pretty much futile at this point. Unless someone involved in the meetings/phone calls between FA EC last weekend decide to go public (unlikely), we will never know.

So it all becomes a circular argument of self-justification to those who keep saying the date of the reservation and the contractual obligation are what matters, not the fact that the FA just stabbed the NAACP in the back.

If there is a picket line to cross come February, I'm sure the northern turn out in Jacksonville will be considerable!