The city's 8-month-old boycott battle was waged on two fronts Monday, with a lawsuit against a boycott group and a new campaign promoting tourism in the city.

        The Cincinnati Arts Association followed through with its threatened lawsuit against members of the Coalition for a Just Cincinnati,a boycott group that has urged African-American artists not to perform in Cincinnati.

        In a war that's escalating as the city approaches the first anniversary of the police shooting that sparked riots in April, Monday's offensive belonged to the city and allies in the arts and tourism industries. Boycott groups did not return calls seeking comment Monday.

Ads unveiled Monday tout diversity in city leadership.

        Vice Mayor Alicia Reece, flanked by Mayor Charlie Luken and enough members of City Council to hold a voting session, unveiled the marketing campaign at a luncheon at the Cincinnati Westin Hotel.

        Cincinnati's tourism industry and city officials hope that the campaign, called “Cincinnati — We're on the Move!” — will bolster a national reputation battered by the boycotts.

        “Today is a day when we stand together to say, "Cincinnati is on the move,'” Ms. Reece said. “Let's get our message out across the country.”

        The campaign includes a glossy color brochure promoting events and attractions such as the Black Family Reunion and the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center.

        Of the about five dozen faces on the brochure, the only white one is Mr. Luken's.

        Two print ads show Mr. Luken and Ms. Reece with African-American city officials. One ad resembles a movie poster and proclaims, “The Dawn of New Leadership,” with the image of the mayor and the vice mayor superimposed over the city's skyline.

        The Greater Cincinnati Convention & Visitors Bureau has spent $20,000 to develop the campaign. Ms. Reece said she's seeking more private funding to help place the ads in publications including Black Meetings and Tourism and the Wall Street Journal.

        The ads will also be displayed at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport.

        “What we're unveiling today is not the solution to all of our problems,” Mr. Luken said. “We recognize that Cincinnati has a lot of work to do, and that Cincinnati is not perfect. But we also recognize that a lot of the information that's getting out to the rest of the country about Cincinnati is not balanced.”

        Though planned in advance, Monday's announcement followed a pivotal weekend in the boycott movement.

        On Friday, hundreds of Cincinnatians came downtown to support restaurants and nightclubs hurt by the boycott. But on Saturday and Sunday, boycott groups gained new strength from nationally known civil rights activists the Rev. Al Sharpton and Martin Luther King III.

        And the Progressive National Baptist Convention announced on Saturday that it would cancel its convention here, scheduled for August. That announcement came more than a month after the Baptists met with Mr. Luken in a closed-door meeting.

        The Baptists had demanded that the city open “unconditional negotiations” with boycott leaders; the mayor refused.

        “I knew they were looking at other cities, so it wasn't a surprise to me,” Mr. Luken said Monday. “Do I think we got a fair shake? Absolutely not.

        “It's not good news. It makes the climb that much steeper for us. In the end, I still think that the truth will prevail.”

        The loss of that convention — and its 10,000 attendees — may be the biggest blow in a boycott that has thus far targeted African-American performers in an “Artists of Conscience” campaign by the Coalition for a Just Cincinnati.

        The campaign led to the Cincinnati Arts Association's lawsuit on Monday.

        In a suit filed in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court, the arts group claims that the boycott coalition illegally interfered with its contracts with jazz great Wynton Marsalis, comedian Bill Cosby and R&B groups The Temptations and The O'Jays.

        The artists canceled performances in Cincinnati at venues run by the CAA after they were contacted by the coalition.

        Since the beginning of the year, the coalition has discouraged entertainers from coming to Cincinnati to protest alleged abuses of black suspects by police, among other issues.

        The CAA's lawsuit seeks a half-million dollars in punitive damages, more than $86,000 to cover the CAA's losses from canceled concerts and an injunction to stop the coalition's boycott activities.

        “We filed the lawsuit because we felt it was the appropriate legal remedy available to us,” said Steve Loftin, the CAA's executive director. “We are still open to meet and discuss possible resolution to this outside the court. But that doesn't appear to be their intent.”

        The arts group offered to settle its differences with the coalition in a letter delivered to the group late last month.

        The CAA told the coalition it would not file a lawsuit if the group stopped contacting entertainers that had contracts with the CAA, paid the CAA for damages resulting from canceled concerts and revealed the names of entertainers the group had contacted.

        The letter gave the coalition until last Saturday — the date of the canceled Marsalis concert — to reply.

        Instead, the coalition filed its own lawsuit in federal court last week, claiming that the CAA's letter infringed on the group's right to free speech.

        The CAA lawsuit did not name the Coalition for a Just Cincinnati as a defendant, a group the lawsuit claims has no legal status and is “merely an alias.”

        Named are group leaders, including the Rev. James W. Jones, Amanda Mayes and the Rev. Stephen Scott.

        E-mail rtucker@enquirer.com and gkorte@enquirer.com

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