Civil Rights

Civil Rights. . Dr. Robert Hayling, dentist and Lincolnville resident, organized civil rights demonstrations in St. Augustine starting in the early 1960s. One in 1963 involved a group of teenagers arrested for ordering from a "whites only" lunch counter at the St. Augustine Woolworths. Prosecutors offered a plea deal for release of the jailed students in exchange for their promise not to participate in any more protests. Four of the teenagers -JoeAnn Anderson Ulmer, Samuel White, Audrey Nell Edwards, and Willie Carl Singleton - refused and remained incarcerated until Governor Farris Bryant ordered their release in January of 1964., Dr. Hayling invited Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to St. Augustine to assess its potential as a place to lead civil rights demonstrations. They accepted Dr. Hayling's invitation, and while here quickly saw that racial tensions were high. The City of St. Augustine was planning and promoting its 400th anniversary, bringing greater recognition to the area. These two factors led Dr. King to select St. Augustine as the location to bring national attention to the plight of African Americans in the United States., Dr. King, Dr. Hayling, and others held demonstrations in downtown St. Augustine that included sit-ins, protests, and marches. An incident at the Monson Motor Lodge led to the arrest of Dr. King and 16 rabbis, the largest mass arrest of rabbis in U.S. history., On June 25th, the St. Augustine Beach Hotel and Pier were the staging area for wade-ins to desegregate beaches. White segregationists led by the Ku Klux Klan planted two Confederate flags, then formed a horseshoe pattern to block integrationists from proceeding into the water from the beach boardwalk. Police with batons and police dogs arrested and jailed about ten members of each group. National media chronicled the entire event., As intended by the SCLC, the protests in St. Augustine - particularly the wade-ins and high-profile arrests - were widely publicized and attracted national and international attention. Occurring as Congress debated the Bill, these events are widely credited with providing the political pressure that led to passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964., (captions) , Dr. Hayling, Dr. King and Rev. Ralph Abernathy (seated from left to right) get ready for a news conference in St. Augustine to announce "the beginning of a massive assault on segregation" on June 10, 1964. , , This photograph of the Monson Motor Lodge manager pouring muriatic acid in the pool to remove protesting swimmers was on the cover of the New York Times on June 19, 1964., Images courtesy of The Associated Press, Learn more about civil rights demonstrations in St. Augustine and the local people who participated in this historic moment from the Accord Civil Rights Museum and Freedom Trail.