Chipping in what you can certainly helps: Become a Patron!
St. Augustine Florida – the oldest city in America and another Southern battleground during the civil rights struggle of the 1960s. The Civil Rights Movement was gaining traction throughout the country as well as the interest by mainstream media. This radio documentary, produced by WGBH in Boston was a multi-part series which ran all throughout the Spring and Summer of 1964 as a way of chronicling events as they unfolded as protests and violence escalated all through the year and well into the late 1960s/early 1970s.
In what came to be known as The St. Augustine movement, it was a part of the wider Civil Rights Movement, taking place in St. Augustine, Florida from 1963 to 1964. It was a major event in the city’s long history and had a role in the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Despite the unanimous 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education that the “separate but equal” legal status of racially segregated public schools rendered them inherently unequal, St. Augustine still had only six black children admitted into white schools by 1964. The home of one of the families of these children was burned by local segregationists, while another family had their car burned during a PTA meeting at Fullerwood School.
St. Augustine was scheduled to celebrate its 400th anniversary in 1965. Memorial ceremonies for the anniversary were expected to get the attention of international media, and city officials excluded African Americans from planning of the festivities. The preparations focused mainly on the “Spanish past that endorsed pluralism and Pan-American brotherhood” while ignoring the history of slavery in the US and the Jim Crow laws still in force in the Southern states at the time.
St. Augustine was a city with a population of about 15,000 and was largely dependent on tourism. Black people accounted for 23% of the population but racial segregation and Jim Crow prevented them from playing any sort of role in the local political and economic affairs.
From May until July 1964, protesters endured abuse and verbal assaults, usually without any retaliation, although this time police were often intervening to prevent violence between protesters and counter-protesters. The movement engaged in nightly marches down King Street. The protesters were met by white segregationists who violently attacked them, and hundreds of the marchers were arrested and incarcerated. The jail was filled, so subsequent detainees were kept in an uncovered stockade in the hot sun. When attempts were made to integrate the beaches of Anastasia Island, demonstrators were beaten and driven into the water by segregationists. Some of the protesters could not swim and had to be saved from possible drowning by other demonstrators.
Death threats against the leadership were reaching a fever pitch, especially against Dr. King. In the first week of June, a cottage that was scheduled to house the SCLC president went up in flames. In response, Hayling and his team stepped up their armed patrols, a policy which King personally disapproved of. Nonetheless, King was under Hayling’s armed protection every night he spent in St. Augustine. On June 10, the filibuster against the Civil Rights Act (one of the longest filibusters in history) finally collapsed.
This episode is from May 16, 1964 and is Part 7 of what is an in-depth look at one part of the Civil Rights Movement.
