Martin Luther King Jr. encourages a
young picket at a demonstration in St. Augustine on June 10, 1964.
When Martin Luther King Jr., came to
St. Augustine in the ’60s, he was looking to keep the momentum alive for
passage of the Civil Rights Act. He and other Southern Christian
Leadership Conference members were looking for a community with an active civil
rights movement, said David Colburn, a University of Florida history professor. “They were also looking for a
community that was symbolic in some way, and St. Augustine fit the bill,” he
said.
My comment: Dr King was also active in the Beaufort SC area, where I was living at the time. He had made several visits to the Penn Center in the years I was there. I had many conversations about the movement with our Marine Corps cook who was assigned to the family, J.B. Harris, about the issues of the day. He taught me a lot about tolerance-
It was 1964, and in the wake of
demonstrations and brutality in Birmingham, Ala., there was some talk that King
would go to Washington, D.C. His concern was about violence erupting there and
the possibility of disrupting legislators. That would be counterproductive to
the goal.
So when Robert Hayling, a leader of
the civil rights movement in St. Augustine, reached out to the SCLC for help in
response to violence, officials responded. What met them was brutal violence,
and what they found was a town ripe for change.
“They’d throw rocks at us and bricks
at us and everything downtown,” said J.T. Johnson of Atlanta, an SCLC member
who in 1964 jumped into the whites-only pool at the Monson Motor Lodge.
“People were very cruel in St.
Augustine,” he said.
My comment this was the most famous photo to come out of the incident, I remember seeing the event on National TV- and feeling very angry at what we being done.
After King arrived in St. Augustine,
demonstrations followed that are credited with helping the passage of the Civil
Rights Act. St. Augustine was thrust into the
national spotlight. Why St. Augustine was the focal
point of leaders in a crucial time was partly strategy. Leaders found an active
movement here and knew what took place would grab the attention of the national
media. The city’s 400th anniversary played
a role, if nothing else for symbolism: It was the oldest city in the nation,
and also the oldest segregated city.
ALREADY UNDERWAY
Demonstrations had already been
taking place since the ’50s by the time King arrived, Colburn said.
“We didn’t start the movement,”
Johnson said. A couple of men were major figures
in St. Augustine’s movement.
The Rev. Thomas Wright, who
graduated from Florida Memorial College, was part of reorganizing the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People and was its president,
according to information from the exhibit, “Journey: 450 Years of the African-American
Experience Exhibition” at the St. Augustine Visitor Information Center. In the ’50s and ’60s, Wright was
part of non-violent training for students, some of whom took part in
lunch-counter protests at Woolworth. Wright and his family moved after being
threatened.
Dr. R.B. Hayling, a dentist, led a protest in
March 1963 for the NAACP against the segregated 400th anniversary celebration
of St. Augustine. People in the movement wanted to be
part of the anniversary, but the power structure said no, said resident Barbara
Vickers, who was part of demonstrations.
Some people in town knew the timing
was right because of the anniversary, said Thomas James “T.J.” Jackson, who was
12 when he participated in a march. There was enthusiasm about the anniversary,
and that increased the attention on St. Augustine. Hayling established a youth council
for the NAACP that held non-violent demonstrations and the Woolworth sit-in
protest that ended with four teenagers getting arrested.
The Ku Klux Klan “terrorized
African-American neighborhoods in St. Augustine,” but “they were driven off
with gunfire,” according to the exhibit. That happened after the KKK beat
Hayling and other activists in September 1963 The NAACP and Hayling eventually
split, and Hayling contacted the SCLC for the help.
This isn't the first I've read or heard of the seeming major differences between the NAACP and its goals, and the goals of the SCLC.
VIOLENCE AND CHANGE
SCLC officials came at Hayling’s
request. The symbolism of the approaching 400th anniversary may have been icing
on the cake. A quote from a speech King gave in
St. Augustine, shown in the Journey exhibit, reads:
“St. Augustine is merely a symbol of
an expression of the tragedies that invoke our whole nation in the area of
racial issues. Now the fact is that we are picking on St. Augustine, we are
seeking to make this the oldest city in the United States, one of the most democratic
cities of the United States.” The SCLC sent in representatives to
see how things were going. “They found that there was a pretty
strong movement,” Colburn said. When King arrived, so did more white
militants from outside St. Augustine.
King and leaders held meetings at
churches and organized marches and demonstrations, which were met with
violence. Some of St. Augustine’s law
enforcement officers were opposed to demonstrations and did not find more
subtle approaches to preventing them. “St. Augustine reacted much more
militantly,” Colburn said. “They turned dogs and police batons on the
demonstrators. … They actually cooperated with the militants.”
LOCAL PERSPECTIVES
The marches and demonstrations that
followed were peaceful. Jackson, of St. Johns County,
remembers that people were told that if they couldn’t keep themselves from
fighting, they should not march. He was 12 years old when he went to
meetings at churches around the community. He was in a march when Andrew Young
was attacked. He remembered that a white man from Boston was walking with them. “They knocked all of us out the way
and jumped on him,” Jackson said of the attackers. The marchers went around the plaza
and near the former slave market, which was full of people “with bats and chains
and hoses.” “ ‘We Shall Overcome,’ ” he said. “
‘We Shall Not Be Moved.’ Those were two of the main songs we sang.” The churches were also segregated. At one of the church meetings with
King, Vickers remembered agreeing to participate in the kneel-ins, the church
demonstrations where people would go to segregated churches and pray. She remembered one usher telling
them to leave during a demonstration.
“He said, ‘If I ever see your face
around here again, you’ll be sorry,’ ” she said.
THE LODGE
Monson Motor Lodge in St. Augustine
was where most of the reporters stayed, Colburn said.
In June 1964, demonstrators jumped
into the pool, and the motel’s manager poured muriatic acid into it in
response. King was also arrested. That photo was circulated nationally,
and by July Congress passed the Civil Rights Act. While St. Augustine wasn’t initially
on the schedule for the SCLC, what happened in St. Augustine played a role in
pushing the act along, Johnson said.
“We gave St. Augustine some credit
for that,” he said.
I believe the original Monson Hotel has been torn down, at the site now is the Hilton Hotel- I think there may be a marker there, though.
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