HOW THE ST.

AUGUSTINE MOVEMENT HELPED PASS THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACT OF 1964 AND THE POLICE BRUTALITY THAT THE ACTIVISTS ENDURED.

LITERATURE REVIEW In 1964, St. Augustine, Florida prepared for their 400th Anniversary and the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his group, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, arrived there so that they could begin a vast campaign to integrate the nations oldest city. Dr. Kings objective was to lead local demonstrations on desegregating the city and he wanted to gain media attention so that there would be worldwide support of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Dr. King performed this desegregation approach in two other cities, Albany, Georgia and Birmingham, Alabama. Dr. King succeeded in Birmingham because he used the media to show the brutality that the police were administrating on the African American protestors. American Historian and Author David J. Garrow argued in the book St. Augustine, Florida, 1963-1964: Mass Protest and Racial Violence, St. Augustine, when faced with the crisis of integration, turned toward militant backlash and the preponderant militant backlash organization, the Ku Klux Klan.1 Free-lance writer Lillie Patterson spoke about the events that lead to the St. Augustine Movement in her book, Martin Luther King, Jr. and The Freedom Movement. Before the St. Augustine Movement, Dr. King formed the Birmingham Movement because he felt that if he prevailed with integration in the South, it would affect the course of the struggle in cities all over the South.2 Moreover, there were numerous laws passed, which gave black people freedom and equality since Reconstruction. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 gave black people the freedom to coexist in America because it specified that all persons who were born in the United States are

David J Garrow, Ed., St. Augustine, Florida, 1963-1964: Mass Protest and Racial Violence, (Brooklyn, New York: Carlson Publishing, Inc. 1989), 139. 2 Lillie Patterson, Martin Luther King and The Freedom Movement, (New York: Facts on File, 1989), 98.

citizens regardless of race or color and could purchase, lease or sell property. The Civil Rights Act of 1957, which was signed into law by President Dwight David Eisenhower, gave black people the right to vote. Furthermore, the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Civil Rights Act of 1957 law were being violated. The campaigns that Dr. King orchestrated were for the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which at the time was still in filibuster in the United States Congress. This law would outlaw all discriminatory acts that were bestowed upon women and African-Americans. David J. Garrow argued, that there were a couple of diverse effects of the integration period that occurred in the nations oldest city.3 The first one was in 1963, which consisted of mostly locals living in the area. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was the main organization in the city and they were doing their best in helping with organizing the demonstration with Dr. Robert B. Hayling. The NAACP asked former President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Jr, to cease the funding that the white city officials were asking to use for their anniversary celebration. Garrow concludes with his explanation about the waves of integration by arguing that after the first wave ended in 1963 the second wave of integration started.4 The second wave was on the national level and that included the national leaders for the integrationists and a mixed bag, national and local, for the militant segregationists.5 The protestors who lived in St. Augustine were worried about how this demonstration was going to occur and how many lives were being sacrificed for freedom and equality. Protestors and activists arrived in St. Augustine, Florida in 1963 when Dr. Robert B Hayling a black dentist who lived in the area, and was the NAACPs Youth Council advisor, organized sit-ins near the segregated business in St. Augustine. August 28, 1965 was St.
3 4

Garrow, 101. Garrow, 102. 5 Garrow, 102.

Augustines quatercentennial anniversary and the last thing this city needed was demonstrations showing how the white people were racists. The white officials applied for a federal funding so that they could organize the 400th Anniversary. Dr. Hayling led the protests and even though the black people in St. Augustine made up one-third of the population,6 the local officials were all white. In the fall of 1963, the first demonstration in St. Augustine led to rioting and battles with the Ku Klux Klan and other white residents. Dr. Hayling and the other protestors were arrested and a grand jury blamed them for the rioting and the NAACP asked Dr. Hayling to resign. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference was aware of racial tensions that were occurring in St. Augustine; however, Dr. King wrote to the White House because he wanted to know how the funding for the citys anniversary celebration was going to be allocated.7 Demonstrators also contacted the Southern Christian Leadership Conference for assistance after white supremacists began attacking and there was no ministerial guidance. The SCLC recruited northern students for the next demonstration near the Easter holidays in 1964 and many were arrested and jailed. When Dr. King arrived in St. Augustine in May of 1964, he did not get a pleasant welcome, and a couple days after speaking at a Baptist church, the home that the SCLC had rented for him was bombed. In June, Dr. King and Rev. Abernathy were arrested while trying to enter a segregated restaurant. The demonstrators and the SCLC lead marches through the Old Slave Market in St. Augustine were they were beaten and assaulted by the Ku Klux Klan and arrested. Although by late June 1964 King was eager to leave St. Augustine and focus SCLC efforts on Alabama, he did not want to negatively affect the passage of the Civil Rights Act, and

6 7

Patterson, 126. Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Global Freedom Struggle http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/ (Accessed October 20, 2011).

on 18 June 1964 a Grand Jury called on King and SCLC to leave St. Augustine for one month to diffuse the situation, claiming that they had disrupted racial harmony in the city, King replied that the Grand Jurys request was an immoral one, as it asked the Negro community to give all, and the white community to give nothing. St. Augustine, they insisted, had never had peaceful race relations.8 Even though matters were not resolved in the city, then Governor C. Farris Bryant said that there would be a formation of a biracial committee so that racial tensions could end in St. Augustine and the SCLC activists left St. Augustine. The Civil Rights Act still had not passed, and then President Lyndon Baines Johnson was not happy. The House of Representatives used only eleven days to debate and clear the bill, however in the Senate it was a tough battle.9 When it was time to vote on the final argument, the senators knew that it would be a close vote. California Senator, the late Clair Engle who at the time was ill and could not speak managed to point to his eye to record and aye vote.10The Civil Rights Bill was passed on July 19, 1964. In February of 1965, the Legislative Investigation Committee formed a report on the Racial and Civil Disorders of St. Augustine about how the protestors and activists were treated during the 1963-1964 demonstration. Demonstrators argued that they were not protected by the local authorities when the Ku Klux Klan attacked them. The public officials were interviewed by the committee as were the protestors involved in the movement and even though it was agreed that what happened in St. Augustine could not be repaired, changes did need to be made. In addition, the report argued that in 1963 some 444,000 tourists thronged through the Old Spanish fort in the heart of St.

8 9

Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute. Patterson, 129. 10 Patterson, 129.

Augustine, however, last year there were only 322,000a sharp drop of 27%.11 This must mean that they drop was due to the racial disorder, which occurred in the summer of 1964. Another passage in the report argued that the hotels and restaurants reserved the right on who they wanted to serve. Their defense was that tourists would pass them by if they catered to colored customers.12 City officials also added that there no racial issues between blacks and whites in 1962. There were secondary sources such as articles from journals and books, which demonstrated what happened during the St. Augustine Movement. From the primary sources, I located documents from the Florida Legislative committee and discovered that there was an investigation into the brutality and violence during The Movement. David R. Colburn wrote a book entitled, Racial Change and Community Crisis: St. Augustine, Florida, 1877-1980, which examined what happened during the movement. The author argued what race relations was like from post-Reconstruction period to the present.13 John A. Kirk wrote an article called, State of the Art: Martin Luther King, Jr. for the Journal of American Studies which discussed how the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr became involved with the St. Augustine Movement. Colburn argued how Dr. Kings organization, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference campaigned in the nations oldest city in 1964. The campaign was run ostensibly to keep the issue of civil rights in the headlines as Congress debated the 1964 Civil Rights Bill.14 One news article, written by John Herber, entitled, Right Wing Stirs Strife In Florida: Accused of Blocking Peace Efforts in St. Augustine, argued how Herber argued how the
11

Racial and Social Disorders in St. Augustine, Report of the Legislative Investigation Committee, February 1965 http://www.archive.org/stream/racialcivildisor00flor#page/n1/mode/2up (Accessed October 8, 2011). 12 Racial and Social Disorders. 13 David R. Colburn, Racial Change, and Community Crisis: St. Augustine, Florida, 1877-1980, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985), preface. 14 John A. Kirk, State of the Art: Martin Luther King, Jr. Journal of American Studies, 38 (2004): 339 (Accessed October 4, 2011).

citizens of St. Augustine did not want people outside of their city to know about how they were treating Black people. The city of 15,000 persons derives 80 percent of its income from tourists and the National Park Service said the number of visitors to the fort declined almost 45 percent during the first 10 days of June, compared to the same period last year.15 Remember, this was occurring during the citys quatercentennial, and St. Augustine did not want to be associated with violence and racial tension during this memorable event. There was also an investigation on how the White citizens of the city were treating the protestors and how the St. Johns County local police did not protect them. Herber wrote, The state went into Federal District Court at Jacksonville and asked Judge Bryan Simpson to amend his injunction against a police ban against night marches.16 Because of the court order, more violence occurred with the Whites marching through the Black neighborhood because the demonstrators were no longer protected. Other articles which will argue what happened during the St. Augustine Movement, are 16 Rabbis Arrested as Pool Dive-In Sets Off St. Augustine Rights Clash, and Marches Curbed At St. Augustine: Governor Bars Night Moves as Melee Erupts at Beach. The 1965 report from the United States Commission on Civil Rights called, A Report on Equal Protection in the South, which probed into the failure of Southern local officials not adhering to the protection of protestors, which is to be done under the Federal Constitution. The primary source, Racial and Civil Disorders in St. Augustine: Report of the Legislative Committee will be able to help in the argument which will be supported by the books and periodical articles that I will be using.

15

John Herber, Right Wing Stirs Strife in Florida: Accused of Blocking Peace Efforts in St. Augustine, Dispatch of The Times, London, New York Times; June 14, 1964, 59. 16 Herber.

WORKS CITED Primary Sources Bryant, William O. Six Negro Children Killed in Alabama Sunday. The Times-News. 11 November 1963. Fourteenth Amendment-Rights Guaranteed Privileges and Immunities of Citizenship, Due Process and Equal Protection, U.S. Constitution Fourteenth Amendment, FindLaw 2011, http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment14/ (Accessed November 2, 2011). Handler, M. S. Dr. King Calls Birmingham a Blow to Nonviolence, The New York Times, Sep 25, 1963, pg. 33. Hell fight the Jim Crow laws, New York Times 3 November 1904. Herbers, John. 16 Rabbis Arrested as Pool Dive-In Sets Off St. Augustine Rights Clash: 16 Rabbis Seized in St. Augustine. Special to the New York Times, 19 June 1964, Proquest Historical Newspapers. Herbers, John. Marches Curbed At St. Augustine: Governor Bars Night Moves as Melee erupts at Beach. New York Times, 21 June 1964, Proquest Historical Newspapers. Herbers, John. Police-Klan Ties Hinted In Florida. Special to The New York Times, Proquest Historical Newspapers. John Herber, Right Wing Stirs Strife in Florida: Accused of Blocking Peace Efforts in St. Augustine, Dispatch of The Times, London, New York Times; June 14, 1964, 59. King goes on record: His most in-depth interview given. Philadelphia Tribune: 15 Jan 15 1999, (from 1965 interview from Playboy Magazine). Huie, William Bradford. The Shocking Story of Approved Killing in Mississippi. Look Magazine 24 January 1956. Law Enforcement: A Report on Equal Protection in the South. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, p. 47. United States Commission on Civil Rights , 1965. http://www.law.umaryland.edu/marshall/usccr/documents/cr12l41.pdf (Accessed October 5, 2011) Nation Horrified By Murder of Kidnapped Chicago Youth. Jet Magazine 15 Sept.1955. Plenn, Abel. Report on Montgomery a Year After: The buses are integrated and running, but despite on outward calm the future relationship between Negros and whites is tensely undecided. New York Times. 29 Dec 1957. Powledge, Fred. Protesters Fail in St. Augustine. Special to The New York Times, Proquest Historical Newspapers.

Racial and Civil Disorders in St. Augustine: Report of the Legislative Committee. Florida Legislative Investigation Committee. University of Florida College Libraries, 1965. http://www.archive.org/stream/racialcivildisor00flor#page/n1/mode/2up (Accessed October 8, 2011). Telegram from Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Global Freedom Struggle, 30 June 1964, http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/%5Cprimarydocuments%5CTelegram-fromMalcolmX-to-M.gif (Accessed October 20, 2011).

Text of Supreme Court Decision Outlawing Negro Segregation in the Public Schools. New York Times. 18 May 1954. To fight Jim Crow laws: Negros Plan 1,000,000 To Insure Citizens. New York Times. 28 June 1923. Whites Shoot Up Negro Section of St. Augustine. Atlanta Daily World. 13 Oct 1963. Pg1. Proquest Historical Newspapers

Secondary Sources Beauchamp, Keith A. The Murder of Emmitt Louis Till: The Spark that Started the Civil Rights Movement. The Black Collegian Archives. , http://www.blackcollegian.com/african/till2005-2nd.shtml (Accessed October 27, 2011).

Brownwell, Blaine. Racial Crisis in the Nations Oldest City. Reviews in American History 15, No.1 (Mar. 1987): 84-89. Carson, Clayborne. Between Contending Forces: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the African American Freedom Struggle. Magazine of History 19 (2005): 17-21. Colaiaco, James A. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Paradox of Nonviolent Direct Action. Phylon 47, No.1 Clark Atlantic University (1st Qtr., 1986): 16-28. Colburn, David R. Racial Change and Community Crisis: St. Augustine, Florida, 1877-1980. New York: Columbia University Press, 1985. Davis, Jack E. Ed., The Civil Rights Movement. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers, 2001. Drabble, John. The FBI, COINTELPRO-WHITE HATE and the Decline of the Ku Klux Klan Organizations in Alabama, 1964-1971. Alabama Review 61, 1 (Jan 2008): 3-47. Kirk, John A. State of the Art: Martin Luther King, Jr. Journal of American Studies, 38 (2004): 339 (Accessed October 4, 2011). Landers, Jane. Slavery in the Lower South. Magazine of History 17 (Apr 2003): 23-27. Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Global Freedom Struggle. http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/ (Accessed October 20, 2011). Ezra, Michael ed,. Civil Rights Movement: People and Perspectives. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO, Inc. 2009. Fields, Monique. First city had own civil rights battle: [STATE/SUNCOAST Edition] St. Petersburg Times [St. Petersburg, Fla.] (June 5, 2004): 3. Gallagher, Charles. The Catholic Church, Martine Luther King, Jr., and the March in St. Augustine. The Florida Historical Quarterly, 83, No. 2 Gannon, Michael, ed. The New History of Florida. Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida, 1996. Garrow, David J. Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and The Southern Christian Leadership Conference. New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc. 1986. Mohl, Raymond. South of the south? Jews, blacks and the civil rights movement in Miami, 1945-1960. Journal of American Ethnic History 18, No. 2. (Winter 1999): 3-36.

Newman, Mark. The Civil Rights Movement. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Publishers, 2004. Patterson, Lillian. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Freedom Movement. New York: Facts on File, 1989. Rabby, Glenda Alice. The Pain and The Promise: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Tallahassee, Florida. Athens and London: The University of Georgia Press, 1999. Russell, Margaret. Cleansing moments and retrospective justice, Michigan Law Review 101 (Mar 2003), 1225-1268. Samad, Anthony Asadullah. 50 Years After Brown: The State of Black Equality In America. Los Angles, CA.: Kabili Press, Inc., 2005. Warren, Dan R. If It Takes All Summer: Martin Luther King, the KKK and States Rights in St. Augustine, 1964. Tuscaloosa: The University Of Alabama Press, 2008. Word, Ron. Freedom Trial marks civil rights movement; Chasing American history; Town in Florida shows historical landmarks, work of black activists: [Final Edition]. The Spectator [Hamilton, Ont.] (Sep 1, 2007): 5.