A recent social media post by a hotel owner in Rapid City, S.D., announcing that Native Americans would be barred from the business after a shooting in one of the hotel's rooms has prompted swift condemnation from community leaders, a protest and a federal civil rights lawsuit.
The owner of the Grand Gateway Hotel was upset about an attack that took place early on March 19 in which the shooter and victim were both Native American. She said that she was concerned about an increase in crime in the city.
Ms. Uhre wrote on Facebook on March 20 that they would no longer allow Native Americans on their property.
In The South Dakota Standard last weekend, a commentator wrote about race relations in Rapid City being a powder keg.
Local officials, including the mayor, tribal leaders, law enforcement officials and other community groups, condemned Ms. Uhre's comments.
The post was a blatant example of racism that stuck out from the many subtle and systemic kinds of racism that Indigenous people face every day.
Nick Tilsen, the president of the NDN Collective, an activist group based in Rapid City that is an advocate for Indigenous causes, said he was shocked when he first saw the comments by Ms. Uhre.
I was wondering if this was the 1960s in Montgomery or Alabama, where there was a lot of racism during the civil rights era.
We need to do something about it. We are not going to let it slide. Not here. Not in our community. We are not going to turn the other cheek on this one.
The civil rights lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court in the state's Western Division. The proposed class-action suit claims that Native Americans tried to rent rooms at the hotel two days after the social-media post, but were denied. The hotel's actions are part of a pattern of discrimination against Native Americans.
On the same day the lawsuit was filed, hundreds of community members and activists marched from a park to the federal courthouse in downtown Rapid City, where the NDN Collective held a rally and news conference.
Ms. Uhre didn't comment on the lawsuit. Nicholas Uhre said that the hotel never had a policy against Native Americans renting a room. He said that his mother's comments were stupid and emotional when she was distraught over the shooting.
The police say a 19-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of assault and a felony with a firearm in connection with the shooting at the hotel. A police spokesman said that a young man was fighting for his life in the hospital.
Someone took a stupid post by a 76-year-old lady and they are using it for political purposes.
He said that they rent to Native Americans all day. We never will.
He called the attempts by members of the NDN Collective to rent rooms a stunt.
Mr. Tilsen said that they went up there to get rooms that were similar to what they had in town.
Mayor Steve Allender, a Republican, said that statements like Ms. Uhre's pit communities against each other and are harmful to the city's businesses and broader community.
Mr. Allender said that they do not represent Rapid City or America.
I am calling on the Uhre family to publicly address and denounce these statements and begin making amends to the community, most especially the Native American people.
The local police pushed back against the claims that crime was out of control in Rapid City, a city of about 75,000 that is home to Mount Rushmore.
The Rapid City Police Department saw an increase in certain types of crime around the time of the coronaviruses. There is nothing specific to Rapid City and Pennington County that we are observing.
The calls for service at the hotel and surrounding area decreased by about 10 percent in the year after that.
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