Nashville hotel cancels rooms for white supremacist event

The Nashville hotel where white supremacists planned to host an annual event this weekend has canceled reservations for the event, according to Guesthouse Inn director of sales Michelle Jameson.

Jameson said the hotel on Music Valley Drive decided three days ago to cancel reservations for a Council of Conservative Citizens event. She said the hotel decided to cancel reservations after "it was brought to our attention to what this group might possibly be."

The CCC is a white supremacist organization cited as the possible inspiration for Dylann Roof, the man charged with murdering nine black churchgoers in Charleston, S.C.

"This is definitely not what the Guesthouse Inn represents," Jameson said in a phone interview Thursday.

"The group will not be at our hotel, nor will they ever be at our hotel."

When The Tennessean called the hotel Wednesday and asked about the special CCC rate, a representative said all the rooms available at that rate had been booked. Jameson said she thought there were "about four or five rooms" booked through the special rate. If other CCC members booked a room without the rate, she said the hotel wouldn't be able to know if they were affiliated with the event.

Brad Griffin, a board member for the CCC, confirmed the organization told its members not to come to Nashville this weekend. He said they had anticipated about 100 people would attend the event, and might plan to reschedule the event elsewhere in the future.

"We can't reserve a hotel conference room without groups organizing out there to make death threats to cancel the conference, certain protests and stuff. One after another, these private hotels fold," Griffin said in a phone interview Thursday.

"The most outrageous thing about this is you have these people posturing as civil rights groups when their real agenda is taking away the civil rights of others."

Griffin said the CCC does "cover black-on-white crime" on its website, but argued the information and language it posts shouldn't link the organization to Roof.

"All he did was read our website. I'm sure he watches television, he reads newspapers like I do," Griffin said.

"He's responsible for his own actions. No one I know had ever heard of this guy."

In a manifesto, Roof cited information he read on the CCC website as the inspiration for how he arrived at his racist views, according to multiple media reports. Other CCC representatives have denied any culpability in the attack at the Charleston, S.C., church.

The Southern Poverty Law Center obtained an internal newsletter for the CCC that included details about the event. It included some of the details on the report in a blog post Tuesday. A full copy of the CCC newsletter is included at the bottom of this story. The center confirmed Griffin is affiliated with the CCC.

In a 2014 report from the center, Tennessee is considered a "hate tourist mecca" because several white supremacist organization hold events in the state. They typically hold those events at public parks; Griffin noted that as more private hotels refuse service, the organizations are driven to book places at public venues that can't deny accommodations.

Jameson said she made the decision with the owner of the hotel to cancel the reservations. She said she'd received many calls complaining about the event.

The hotel has never had to cancel an event in the past, and she didn't immediately know what legal authority the hotel had to cancel a guest's reservation. A cancellation policy wasn't immediately available on the hotel's website.

The hotel is listed as a location connected to the Red Lion Hotels Corp., according to the corporation's website. The Twitter account for the corporation sent several tweets late Wednesday saying "the owner of this property has canceled this conference with the group."

A spokesman for Red Lion Hotels Corp. has not responded to a request for comment.

The organization's agenda said it had planned to have a national board meeting from 4 to 5:30 p.m. Friday, followed by a "meet & greet." There were other events planned for Saturday. The exact location of the events was not included in the CCC report.

Reach Dave Boucher at 615-259-8892 and on Twitter @Dave_Boucher1.