A North Carolina Hampton Inn employee lost her job following an altercation with a Black mother who was using the hotel’s pool with her children.
The incident occurred on June 26 at the Hampton Inn location in Williamston, North Carolina, reported ABC 7. The employee called the police on Anita Williams-Wright after the women argued about the latter’s right to use the pool area. Williams-Wright went live on Facebook to document her interaction with the woman and two Williamston Police officers.
Williams-Wright accused the employee of discrimination and harassment.
“It was other people in the pool and she said nothing to them,” Williams-Wright said.
The employee and two officers asked Williams-Wright for proof she stayed there and she argued her active room key should be sufficient. When the officers asked for her name and identification, she declined so the officers looked up her license plate. Williams-Wright also refused to provide her room number.
“I proved that I have a room here with my kids,” the mother of two said while holding her room key and gesturing toward her children. “Because I’m the only Black person here in this pool, they wanna question me.”
Williams-Wright also claimed the employee told her it was “people like you” who typically used the pool area without permission.
“It was two white people sitting over there and she said nothing to them,” Williams-Wright said. “She said to me, ‘Oh, because it’s always people like you using the pool unauthorized.’ Who is people like me?”
The video stream recorded about ten minutes of footage from the incident. It was viewed over 900,000 times on Facebook.
Shruti Gandhi Buckley, global head of Hampton by Hilton, announced the white woman is no longer employed by the company on Monday.
“Hampton by Hilton has zero-tolerance for racism or discrimination of any kind,” Buckley said in a statement. “The member is no longer employed at the hotel. We have apologized directly to the guest and her family for their experience and will work with them and the hotel to make this right.”
