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SHARE IT IN MIAMI 63

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Button:Creator:Product:Date:Group:Meeting:Location:
795don marquardtSHARE8/84SHARE63Miami
While this button created of Don was in 1984, but in the early 60's, SHARE held it's first meeting in Miami, scheduled for the Fontainbleu Hotel. One of the SHARE volunteers was Channing Jackson, who happened to be black, and when he went to the planning meeting with the Fontainbleu a few weeks prior to the meeting, he discovered that no black person had ever been allowed to register at that hotel, and there were heavy negotiations as to whether SHARE would be held there, if blacks (there were either three or four black SHARE attendees back then) were not permitted to stay at the Fontainbleu. In fact, a letter was sent to all SHARE attendees discussing the problem, and it indicated that SHARE would be held in Miami, but maybe at another hotel if the Fontainbleu didn't relent. At the last minute, the Fontainbleu blinked, and Channing was the first black to register, on Saturday. As it turned out, on that Sunday, on the beach, the monthly competition among all of the beach hotel life guards for "The Best Tan" was held, and there was a line of competitors queued for their chance to parade up and down the makeshift runway on the beach. So Channing and Ray Jackson ran to their rooms, got their swim suits, and joined the end of the line; the social director was sweating blood as the line drew shorter, until it finally was Channing's turn to parade; he took the mike she had been using to announce each guard's name and hotel, and announced that "We've decided it's unfair for us to compete - we're professionals at this 'tanning' thing".
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