We are winning! Airbnb to Block and Cancel D.C. Reservations During Inauguration.
Marriott, Hyatt, Hilton, The Line, and Hay Adams Hotels, you're up next!
We are incredibly glad to see Airbnb take real action to prevent white nationalists from coming to DC this weekend. We intentionally did not call for unilateral cancellation of reservations because we know many unhoused folks are using Airbnbs to stay safe this week. We call on hosts to honor these existing reservations. We will be reaching back out to all hosts we've contacted so far to ask them to keep housing-insecure neighbors safe. If other organizations want to offer to house this weekend please contact "sddcairbnbs@gmail.com".
Black Lives Matter DC and ShutDownDC call for the closure of all DC-area hotels between January 15-21
Demands include extending the mayor’s emergency order, paying workers during the closure
DC BLM Contact: loretta@caminopr.com
ShutDownDC Contact: media@ShutDownDC.org, 202-596-7864
January 13, Washington DC — In advance of white nationalist groups’ plans to come back to DC this coming weekend, Black Lives Matter DC and ShutDownDC issued the following statement which details their demands on DC area hotels:
COVID-19 is one imminent threat to the safety of DC in the next 10 days but white nationalist violence is even more immediate. White nationalists are planning to rally in DC on January 17 and we need to take urgent action to prevent a repeat of the violence we saw on January 6.
We call on every hotel in DC to close completely between January 15 and 21. In the lead-up to January 6, we asked hotels to disavow white supremacists and refuse them service. The vast majority refused – and failed to prevent white supremacists from staying in our city.
We are facing an unprecedented threat of white nationalist violence and COVID spread. We know from last week that white nationalists chose downtown DC hotels for their proximity to the Capitol and BLM Plaza. We also know that staff and other guests at these hotels were verbally attacked and harassed, mask orders were ignored, and everyone’s safety was placed in jeopardy.
This closure should not come at the cost of workers’ pay. These closures should come with full pay for all staff.
Closing hotels completely for these six nights is the only way to guarantee the safety of hotel workers, neighbors, vulnerable and unhoused residents, incoming administration officials, members of Congress, and our democracy. If hotels do not willingly close, we ask Mayor Bowser to extend today’s emergency order and close all hotels in the city.
ShutDownDC and Black Lives Matter DC are asking residents and activists to make phone calls to seven DC hotels that hosted Trump supporters last week and ask them to close, including the Hyatt Place hotel, the Grand Hyatt, the Hilton Garden Inn, Homewood Suites by Hilton, the Capital Hilton, The Line Hotel, the Marriott Metro Center, and The Hay-Adams.
The call for hotels to close builds on ShutDownDC’s call for Airbnb hosts to decline new reservations for the coming week and to thoroughly vet existing reservations. Since Monday, ShutDownDC has mobilized more than 500 activists to contact 3,480 Airbnb hosts in the DC region. Hundreds of Airbnb hosts have agreed to take their listings down for this period, in a show of support for our safety and our democracy.
DC BLM leaders have been discussing our take on Jan 6 white supremacist violence, and our campaign for safety in DC during the inauguration, check us out on CNN and NPR!
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Black Lives Matter DC is a member-based abolitionist organization centering Black people most at risk for state violence in DC, creating the conditions for Black Liberation through the abolition of systems and institutions of white supremacy, capitalism, patriarchy and colonialism.