Tampa Bay Times: St. Augustine coming to grips with its
segregationist past, dark role in civil rights struggle
St. Augustine is finally coming to grips with the civil rights struggle that took place there in 1964, which likely prompted the Senate to end the longest filibuster in its history and pass the landmark Civil Rights Act.
Craig Pittman, a staff writer for the Tampa Bay Times, profiles Dr. Robert Hayling, a black dentist who moved to the city in his 30s and launched a year-long series of protests against the segregation laws that prevented blacks from eating in the same restaurants, using the same restrooms, swimmng in the same pools and lying on the same beaches as whites. |
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Hayling's campaign brought the struggle to a boiling point in the city and became a beacon that drew in members of the racist Ku Klux Klan and civil rights agitators from across the nation.
They clashed and there was blood. Klansmen firebombed homes in black neighborhoods and brutally beat Hayling and other protestors. Martin Luther King was arrested on the steps of a motel as he tried to enter its restaurant. Whites chased blacks into the ocean as blacks "waded-in" on the sands of a segregated beach. During another wade-in at the swimming pool of the motel where Dr. King was arrested, a manager threw muratic acid into the pool to force the protestors to leave.
St. Augustine has spent decades trying to forget the civil rights clashes. But a new museum and talk of marking locations of the most significant events suggest some of its residents might be ready to remember.
They clashed and there was blood. Klansmen firebombed homes in black neighborhoods and brutally beat Hayling and other protestors. Martin Luther King was arrested on the steps of a motel as he tried to enter its restaurant. Whites chased blacks into the ocean as blacks "waded-in" on the sands of a segregated beach. During another wade-in at the swimming pool of the motel where Dr. King was arrested, a manager threw muratic acid into the pool to force the protestors to leave.
St. Augustine has spent decades trying to forget the civil rights clashes. But a new museum and talk of marking locations of the most significant events suggest some of its residents might be ready to remember.
Click here to read the story by Craig Pittman, staff writer of the Tampa Bay Times.
Click here to see a video about the civil rights clashes in St. Augustine
Click here to see a video about the civil rights clashes in St. Augustine
Left: Martin Luther King Jr. discusses the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's efforts to stop segregation in St. Augustine. Right: blacks and whites confront each other after blacks decide to "wade in" the ocean on St. Augustine's segregated beach. State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory