Such as: Last Wednesday, protesters busted in on a closed, executive committee meeting of the NAACP, breaking a door lock and a bar on the door to the offices in Bond Hill.

        But it hardly made a ripple in the media pond.

        I'm trying to imagine the same politically correct shrugs and yawns if protesters disrupted a closed meeting of the board of Procter & Gamble. Instead, I see big headlines.

        So here's the story:

Police called

        The NAACP executive committee was deciding whether to have its annual dinner at a downtown hotel, or move it to honor the boycott.

        NAACP President Norma Holt Davis said “about three or four dozen” protesters gathered outside.

        “There was a crowd all around the building, and then some forced their way in,” she said.

        “I know a number of them, and they were from all of the organizations that have been involved in the boycott.”

        She named the gay rights group Stonewall Cincinnati, the Black United Front and the Coalition for a Just Cincinnati.

        “Some people got into the meeting. Some were NAACP members.”

        Ms. Davis, a soft-spoken lawyer who has been president for two years, said she was certain some of the 30 members of the committee were intimidated. Police were called, but there were no arrests.

Mob rule

        “We asked them to remove themselves and get out,” she said. “That's generally not how picketing takes place.”

        The protesters ignored her. And the committee voted to obey the boycott — surprise — by moving the annual dinner outside downtown.

        Ms. Davis said she believes a conference call from national NAACP President Kweisi Mfume swayed the decision more than the protests.

        The call came during the disruption — but Mr. Mfume said nothing about the protests, she said.

        “I believe we are bound by the directive from the national organization,” said Ms. Davis. The local NAACP remains neutral on the boycott.

        The protestors were “thuggish,” she said. “I stand by that.”

        There's another way to describe it: mob rule.

        The leaders of the boycott, the same yahoos who have been shouting, bullying and disrupting City Council for years, had met with Ms. Davis on Monday, and she declined to move the meeting.

        So boycott leader Nathaniel Livingston asked Mr. Mfume to overrule her. Ms. Davis talked to national officers, but Mr. Mfume never talked to her before he told the local chapter to honor the boycott, she said.

        Some donors are yanking their support, and a penalty could be paid for pulling out of the downtown hotel reservation. But the NAACP's credibility was damaged most.

        “These folks made it clear they will do whatever is necessary to make sure the boycott is enforced, so I don't expect an apology,” Ms. Davis said.

        It's a disgrace. But maybe that's not news in Cincinnati.        

        E-mail pbronson@enquirer.com or call 768-8301.

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