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American Motorcyclist Association
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American Motorcyclist Association
Organization
An organization for motorcycle riders more commonly known as the AMA.
History
The following section is an excerpt from Wikipedia's American Motorcyclist Association page on 21 August 2021, text available via the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
The American Motorcyclist Association (AMA) is an American nonprofit organization of more than 200,000 motorcyclists that organizes numerous motorcycling activities and campaigns for motorcyclists' legal rights. Its mission statement is "to promote the motorcycling lifestyle and protect the future of motorcycling." The organization was founded in 1924 and as of October 2016 had more than 1,100 chartered clubs.
For clubs and promoters it provides guidance and advice on running events and rallies, and allows affiliated members to vote on AMA matters. It also has a corporate membership category with representatives from the US motorcycle industry.
The AMA is the official national federation representative (FMN) for the United States of America in the Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM), and organizes the US teams and riders for FIM-sanctioned events, including the International Six Day Enduro, Motocross Des Nations and Trials Des Nations.
The AMA was a whites-only organization from its inception in 1924 until the 1950s, not allowing African Americans to join for its first 30 years. Prior to the acceptance of black members, the term outlaw motorcycle club could refer to either a white counterculture biker club that was "uninterested in 'square' events and competitions", or else a club that accepted non-white members and was therefore not allowed to participate in the AMA. In the 1920s and 1930s, black hillclimbing racer William B. Johnson evaded the whites-only restriction and obtained an AMA membership card, which allowed him to compete around the Northeastern United States and become perhaps the first black AMA member. In 1995, AMA President Ed Youngblood said that as a consequence of this racist policy, blacks continued to be underrepresented in AMA events for decades after the segregationist policy was rescinded. That year, Youngblood presented black AMA member Norman Gaines in their membership advertisement in the campaign "I want to protect my rights as a motorcyclist. That's why I'm an AMA member" in both the AMA member magazine and Motorcyclist magazine.
The term one-percenter was coined after the 1947 Hollister riot in Hollister, California. The AMA is said to have responded that 99% of motorcyclists were law-abiding citizens, implying the last one percent were outlaws. The AMA now says they have no record of such a statement to the press, and call this story apocryphal. One-percenter motorcycle clubs are often also known as outlaw motorcycle gangs or OMGs according to the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
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