Civil Rights

Civil Rights. Cascades Park. As the national Civil Rights Movement blossomed, Tallahassee participated. In 1956, city police arrested FAMU students Wilhelmina Jakes and Carrie Patterson after they refused to move to the back of a city bus. Their arrests sparked African American community leaders to organize a seven-month citywide bus boycott., The watershed of the national Civil Rights Movement was the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott led by a young minister named Martin Luther King Jr., who lent his support to Tallahassee's boycott the following year. Tallahassee's civil rights demonstrations added momentum to the national movement and produced national leaders such as Rev. C. K. Steele, one of King's lieutenants in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference., In 1960, FAMU students attempted to integrate lunch counters and department stores, despite being sprayed with tear gas and being jailed. In 1963, students from FAMU and FSU worked together to stage segregation protests at local movie theaters., With Civil Rights Movement came change. In 1971, voters chose Tallahassee's first black public official since Reconstruction - a city commissioner. Over the next 20 years, voters also elected black citizens to the county commission and the state legislature. In 2000, Tallahassee had black citizens in major public sector positions, including city manager and police chief., (Captions) , In May 1956, hundreds of students met in Lee Hall, the FAMU administration building, and agreed to boycott the city bus service for the remainder of the school term. This action to a citywide boycott and the eventual integration of Tallahassee's buses. State Archives of Florida, Sisters Priseilla Gwendolyn and Patrica Gloria Stephens (pictured in the white blouse and dark dress, respectively, at left) were later arrested by these police officers. Their arrest in 1960 led to the first “jail-in” as part of the Civil Rights Movement in Tallahassee, Florida. The Stephens sisters served a 60 day sentence. State Archives of Florida, Patricia Stephens, in the dark glasses, participating in a civil rights demonstration in front of segregated theater in Tallahassee, 1963. State Archives of Florida