Washington, DC, December 28, 2005–The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), and Arab American Institute (AAI), supported by over 100 other organizations, have successfully advocated for the removal of racist images from the Coalition for a Secure Driver‘s License Billboard campaign. Other organizations include Amnesty International, Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation, National Council of La Raza (NCLR), the National Lawyers Guild (NLG), and the September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, among others.
Acording to the Washington Post, “The coalition quickly changed advertising tactics,” and has now removed any Arab cultural symbols, and Arabic writing from their ad. To view action alert on this issue, click here
Earlier, Lamar Advertising decided it would not post the extremely negative and misleading billboard ads for the Coalition for a Secure Driver‘s License. The advertising company was initially set to post the ads in North Carolina. In a statement the company announced that they, “flatly rejected this image and any other message that would be of a discriminatory nature?We can assure you that there will be no discriminating content on any of Lamar Advertising‘s billboards for this or any other advertiser.”
Additionally, the public relations firm that helped design the ads decided to discontinue business with their client, stating, “When we realized the tone of the campaign, we were no longer interested in representing the company.” To read more information on this issue, click here
The advocacy efforts received much media coverage including:
USA Today — Click here
Washington Post — Click here
AP — Click here
The Arab American News — Click here