'Black Bike Week' Riders Cry Foul Over Security Increase

For more than two decades, thousands of African American motorcyclists have traveled across the nation to South Carolina, to attend the Atlantic Beach Memorial Day Bikefest. Every year, the low hum of customized choppers with high-handle bars and the high-pitched revs of neon-painted street bikes have sounded out on Ocean Boulevard.
The 2015 Bikefest, however, was different. Ocean Boulevard, a two-lane commercial strip running parallel to the Atlantic Ocean, was partially closed. Hundreds of police officers enforced a one-way traffic pattern that clogged streets for miles and forced motorcyclists to idle in gridlock for hours. One week after nine people died in a white biker gang shootout in Waco, Texas, Myrtle Beach officials invoked public safety as they ramped up police presence and enacted their controversial traffic plan.