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1964 Monson Motor Lodge protests

The 1964 Monson Motor Lodge protest was part of a series of events during the civil rights movement in the United States which occurred on June 18, 1964, at the Monson Motor Lodge in St. Augustine, Florida. The campaign between June and July 1964 was led by Robert Hayling, Martin Luther King Jr., Ralph Abernathy, Andrew Young, Hosea Williams, C. T. Vivian and Fred Shuttlesworth, among others. St. Augustine was chosen to be the next battleground against racial segregation on account of it being both highly racist yet also relying heavily on the northern tourism dollar. Furthermore, the city was due to celebrate its 400th anniversary the following year, which would heighten the campaign's profile even more. Nightly marches to the slave market were organized, which were regularly attacked and saw the marchers beaten.

1964 Monson Motor Lodge protest
Part of St. Augustine movement
in the Civil Rights Movement
James Brock pouring acid into his pool
DateJune 18, 1964
Location
Caused by
GoalsDesegregation
Resulted in
  • Arrest of protesters
  • Immediate backlash against civil rights protests
  • Later desegregation
  • Ku Klux Klan firebombing of the Monson Motor Lodge
Parties

Protesters

Segregationists

  • Off-duty police officers
Lead figures

At the same time in the U.S. Senate, the civil rights bill was being filibustered. On June 10, this filibuster collapsed. The following day, King was arrested in St. Augustine. King had attempted to be served lunch at the Monson Motor Lodge, but the owner, James Brock—who was also the president of the St. Augustine Hotel, Motel, and Restaurant Owners Association—refused to serve him. King was arrested for trespass and jailed; while imprisoned, he wrote a letter to leading Jewish reformer, Rabbi Israel Dresner, urging him to recruit rabbis to come to St. Augustine and take part in the movement. This they did, and at another confrontation at the Monson, 17 rabbis were arrested on June 18. This was the largest mass arrest of rabbis in American history. At the same time, a group of black and white activists, protesters who had arrived from Albany, Georgia, J.T. Johnson, Brenda Darten, and Mamie Nell Ford, jumped into the Monson's swimming pool. Brock appeared to pour muriatic acid into the pool to burn the protesters. Photographs of this, and of a policeman jumping into the pool in everything but his shoes to arrest them, made headline news around the world.

By now the Civil Rights Act had been passed, but St. Augustine businesses—particularly in the restaurant and culinary trades—were slow at desegregating. Eventually the courts forced Brock and his colleagues to integrate their businesses, and soon after he did, the Monson was firebombed by the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), who violently opposed desegregation. The state judge was unsympathetic to his predicament, however, feeling that Brock and his colleagues had brought the violence of the KKK upon themselves; they had taken advantage of it while it was in their favor, and could not stop it now that it was not.

On June 30, Florida Governor Farris Bryant announced the formation of a biracial committee to restore interracial communication in St. Augustine. Although the Civil Rights Act had passed, there were further problems for both Brock personally and Florida particularly. He had been repeatedly refused bank loans to pay for the damage caused by the protests, and declared himself bankrupt the following year. Also in 1965, although the city celebrated its quadricentennial, there was still a palpable underlying racial tension; the tourist trade had been badly damaged and it has been estimated that St. Augustine lost millions of dollars in tourism. Hotel, motels, and restaurants were especially badly hit.

Background edit

SCLC planning edit

St. Augustine, Florida, a beautiful town and our nation's oldest city, was the scene of raging tempers, flaring violence, and the most corrupt coalition of segregationist opposition outside of Mississippi. It was a stronghold of the Ku Klux Klan and the John Birch Society. There the Klan made a last-ditch stand against the nonviolent movement. They flocked to St. Augustine's Slave Market Plaza from all across north Florida, Georgia, and Alabama. Klansmen abducted four Negroes and beat them unconscious with clubs, ax handles, and pistol butts...St. Augustine was a testing ground. Can the Deep South change? Could southern states maintain law and order in the face of change? Could local citizens, black and white, work together to make democracy a reality throughout America?[1]

Martin Luther King on St. Augustine, Florida

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) had decided to renew their campaign against segregation,[2] and give "new dignity to the movement".[3][note 1] The leadership was originally divided on where to target. James Bevel, for example, wanted to focus on one state—Alabama—whereas Hosea Williams advocated the Floridian seaside holiday town of St. Augustine.[5] St. Augustine was approaching its 400th anniversary.[note 2] Although much smaller than previous civil rights battlegrounds, such as Birmingham, Alabama, it was no less—and probably more—violently segregated, argues author Jim Bishop. Unlike Birmingham, racial power lay not with the mayor and chief of police, he says, but in[11]

H. E. Wolf, banker and bigwig in the Democratic Party; it was the St. Augustine Record, a mirror for white faces; it was an organization called the Ancient City Hunting Club, composed of rifle experts who sometimes made a sport of hunting two-legged "coons." Politics was divided between two political groups: the far right and the ultra-far right. Anyone who was plain right risked being called a Communist.[11]

Choosing of St. Augustine edit

For King—recently named Time Magazine's Man of the Year[12]—it was his preferred choice of "non-violent battlefield" for "expos[ing] Klan savagery to the eyes of the world".[2] It was a highly segregated town, argues the author Thomas E. Jackson, and its celebrations would be restricted to whites only. It was deliberately chosen, continues Jackson, as it had "a business elite vulnerable to negative publicity because it was dependent on northern tourist dollars, a police force with close ties to the Klan, and a reputation for brutal extralegal violence".[13] Social ethicist and theologian Gary Dorrien has described St. Augustine as Florida's "most violently racist city...a Klan stronghold policed by unabashedly racist thugs", where "Blacks who tried to enroll their children in public schools got their homes bombed".[5] scholar Stephen B. Oates says of St. Augustine's law enforcement:[9] However, suggests Webb, this was known to be a dangerous strategy. The Florida Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights informed them that St. Augustine was a "segregated superbomb...with an extremely short fuse".[10]

Here Sheriff L. O. Davis, "a buffoonish, burly, thuggish man", employed an auxiliary force of one hundred deputies, many of them prominent Klansmen, to "keep the niggers in line." Here barrel-chested Hoisted "Hoss" Manucy, dressed in cowboy paraphernalia, led a bunch of Klan-style bullyboys who called themselves the Ancient City Gun Club. They patrolled the county in radio cars with Confederate flags on their antennas. harassing Negroes at will. Manucy boasted that he had no vices, that he didn't smoke, drink, or chase women. All he did was "beat and kill niggers."[9]

Law enforcement in St. Augustine, says David Chalmers, can be summed up in the response to the Klansmen who rioted and the blacks who trespassed: the formers' bonds rarely rose above 236, while the latter's could "run into thousands".[14] The Mayor of St. Augustine has been described by scholar L. V. Baldwin as a "biblical fundamentalist who tolerated such lawlessness while insisting that 'God segregated the races when he made the skins a different color'".[15] received advance warning of the SCLC plans, including that protesters would include figures such as Governor Peabody's mother. The Boston Globe asked the mayor whether he had ever heard of her; he had not. When asked what would happen if, during the protests, she violated segregation laws, the mayor replied, "if she comes down and breaks the law, we are going to arrest her".[3]

James Brock edit

David Garrow has described Brock as "a relative moderate" in the St. Augustine business community,[16] although he was personally a segregationist.[14] Warren, similarly, has said that Brock was "a decent man caught between the violence of the Klan and the unwillingness of community leaders to find meaningful ways to end segregation",[17] while Colburn says he was usually gregarious and "rather mild-mannered, religious man who suddenly found himself thrust" into a civil rights struggle.[18] Chalmers suggests that, while he was willing to desegregate, "he dare not be the first".[19] Brock later explained his position as he saw it: "if I integrated, there wouldn't be more than one Negro a month registered at the motel, but the first night I integrated, all my windows would be busted in".[14]

Prelude edit

Beginning the campaign edit

 
A segregationist being arrested, June 1964; their bail bond was usually a fraction of their opponents'

The campaign in St. Augustine effectively began on Easter Sunday, March 29, 1964,[20] and was deliberately aimed at the city's food and tourism industries, which, argues sociologist Ralph C. Scott, "were as much about race as they were about national and class privilege".[21] This was also the first, but not last, time that the Monson Motor Lodge,[20] at 32 Avenida Menendez[22]—a "big posh lily white" motel[21]—was to be targeted.[20] Monson's was targeted because its owner, James Brock, was not only a prominent local businessman and president of the trade association, but the motel was regularly patronized by reporters, so was felt to provide easy access to the media.[23] An interracial group, which included the 72-year-old mother of Massachusetts' Governor, Endicott Peabody, and the wife of that state's Episcopal Bishop, John Burgess,[20][note 3] led by Reverend David Robinson,[24] attempted to integrate the motel's restaurant.[20] Peabody and Burgess and 37 others[24] were arrested and the affair made national headlines.[20] The mayor condemned the protests, not as local discontent over segregation, but the work of "scalawags" from the north.[24] Colburn argues that "the arrest and subsequent imprisonment of this 72-year-old drew the nation's attention to conditions in St. Augustine as no other incident had. It was a watershed in the community's race relations."[25][note 4] It was not long before leading members of the SCLC—Vivian, Williams, Lee, Shuttlesworth and James Bevel—arrived in St. Augustine and launched workshops on non-violent militant protest.[20] Focussing on local businesses, such as the Monson, would, the SCLC concluded, apply fiscal pressure on the business community and persuade the local whites to see the benefit to granting concessions,[27] and by the end of May the motel was subject to almost daily sit ins.[28]

Jackson suggests that, as far as their strategy went, King and the SCLC had learned from the Birmingham campaign of the previous year that "vivid images of confrontation, with black and white protesters putting their bodies on the line against white supremacists moved the nation more effectively than inspired preaching or patient lobbying".[13] To increase pressure on authorities, King and the SCLC turned to "wade-ins" to integrate public pools and beaches.[29][note 5] In retaliation, large numbers of Ku Klux Klan (KKK) arrived in St. Augustine in droves and commenced drive-by shootings in black neighborhoods, as well as attacking demonstrations with iron bars and bicycle chains.[13][note 6] By now, argues the historian Michael R. Belnap, St. Augustine was "slipping into chaos".[31] Confrontations occurred by day and night; one occasion, King only narrowly managed to persuade the young men not to go home and fetch their guns; Brun suggests that "had they done so, St. Augustine would have gone down as the most violent racial battle in King's nonviolent movement".[33]

Sit-in protest edit

King arrived in St. Augustine on Sunday, May 31,[34] and stayed in Lincolnville, less than a mile from Monson Motor Lodge; Lincolnville was home to prominent leaders of the black community.[35] Apart from St. Augustine, King is known to have visited several other cities in Florida. Such as: Tampa in 1961,[36] Jacksonville[37] and Miami several times.[38] Dorrien posits that he was deliberately kept out of St. Augustine by his colleagues as it was deemed too dangerous to risk his life there.[39]

At a strategy meeting he "spoke of touching white hearts with Christian non-violence". His audience, on the other hand, says Bishop, "wondered if King knew their town": white community leaders knew the SCLC's strategy. They also knew that bigger and stronger cities had eventually come to agreements with King in return for peace on the streets. St. Augustine, though, was "prepared to die on its feet rather than truckle to King", comments Bishop.[11] King had made a tactical decision to get arrested to intensify the struggle.[16] As such, he intended to take part in a sit in at Monson Motor Lodge's,[25] a traditional—and segregated—motel and restaurant overlooking Matanzas Bay.[40] At around 12:20,[41] on June 11, King and his colleagues Ralph Abernathy, Bernard Lee, Clyde Jenkins,[42] Will England,[43] a white chaplain from Boston University,[44] and five others[16] arrived at the Monson for lunch.[41] The SCLC had alerted the press to King's presence[23] and several were there to witness King—who wore a black badge with the word "equal" in white[45]—arrive.[41] The motel manager, James Brock, was also awaiting him on the welcome mat.[23] Brock told his visitors that they were on private property.[45] Although Brock tried to talk privately to King—who introduced himself as "Martin King"—microphones were pushed between them. Newsmen jockeyed for position, amid shouts of "duck your head" and "get that flashgun down".[45]

The delegation attempted to enter the restaurant,[42] but Brock told that the restaurant did not serve blacks. King said they would wait until it did, and some of those with him began a sit in.[33] Brock's and King's conversation was polite.[42] The manager told King and his party, "we can't serve you. We're not integrated."[43] He did state, though, that he would give them entrance should either they present "a federal court order or if a group of St. Augustine businessmen prevail upon me".[45] Their discussion lasted around 15 minutes;[46] Scholar David Colburn describes there being something of a carnival atmosphere to King and Brock's encounter, particularly as King responded with sermon-like replies.[45]

Brock eventually asked King and his party to leave, but, argues Colburn, King "had no intention of leaving. He was there to be arrested."[45] Their conversation ended with Brock beginning to lose his temper, demanding of King, "will you take your nonviolent army somewhere else? I have already had 85 people arrested here." To this King replied, "we'll wait in the hope that the conscience of someone will be aroused".[47] Abernethy asked why Brock had a sign welcoming tourists such as themselves.[43] Brock publicly told King that the only blacks allowed on the premises were servants of white patrons, who allowed them to eat in the service area.[43] In response, King asked Brock, if he understood "the humiliation our people go through".[43] Brock, in turn, appealed to King to see it from his point of view. As a respected local businessman, he argued, it would damage him and his social position if he allowed black people into his restaurant.[note 7] Asking that King understand Brock's responsibilities to his family, he announced to the gathered reporters "I would like to invite my many friends throughout the country to visit Monson's. We expect to remain segregated."[43]

Activist arrests edit

However, says Garrow, Brock was becoming "increasingly exasperated" with the situation,[46] and appears to have called the police.[44][46] In the meantime, other customers had arrived at the motel and, interrupting Brock' and King's discussion,[45] a white customer asked if the restaurant was open yet. Brock replied in the affirmative, and the customer physically pushed his way through King's party, calling King a black bastard as he did so.[43] At this point, the Chief of police Virgil Stuart and Sheriff L. O. Davis,[44] arrived in possession of arrest warrant for breach of the peace, conspiracy and trespass against King and his colleagues.[43] Brock, says Colburn, "breathed a sigh of relief".[45] King and his companions were arrested under Florida's "unwanted guest" law.[48] Branch describes how, then:[43]

Eight volunteers, including a white woman, stepped forward on Davis's announcement that he would accommodate anyone who wanted to join King in jail. A Negro teenager changed his mind when asked pointedly by Stuart if he were sure.[43]

King and his colleagues refused to post bail, which led automatically to their imprisonment in the crowded St John's County Jail.[44][note 8] Fear of a jailhouse lynching led King to be moved to Jacksonville. Before he was sent there and wishing, says Branch, to "maintain the spirit of the St. Augustine movement", King wrote to Israel "Sy" Dresner in New York, who, as a 1961 Freedom Rider, had supported King on a previous occasion,[note 9] requesting him to come to St. Augustine and act as an independent witness to events:[50] King also telegraphed Johnson to tell him that he had witnessed "most complete breakdown of law and order since Oxford, Mississippi".[51][note 10]

Dear Sy. I am dictating this letter from the St. Augustine City Jail...Perhaps if this letter could be read to your brethren next week, it might be considered a 'call' to St. Augustine...I would imagine that some 30 or so rabbis would make a tremendous impact on this community and the nation. We would hope that some would be prepared to submit to arrest.[50][note 11]

Johnson replied to King's telegram and was keen to know if it pleased King, who was known to have been upset at having heard an unfounded rumor that Johnson was intending to drop his support for the Bill; Johnson also wanted King to know that the White House was in contact with the State Governor.[54] While in prison, says Webb, King also "secretly testified" to a grand jury that he would prevent future night marches if a biracial commission were to be established.[55]

Civil Rights Bill debates edit

Furthermore, comments scholar Dan Warren, a Civil Rights Bill was being filibustered before the Senate, which made King's arrests "particularly timely".[44] The filibuster had been on-going for 75 days,[56][note 12] and on the same night King was arrested, the Senate voted for cloture of the debate,[56] the first time in United States history that the Senate had closed down one of its own debates on civil rights; the passage of the bill was now "virtually inevitable".[48] It is possible, argues the scholar James A. Colaiaco that, "had the white population of St. Augustine continued to allow the demonstrators to march unmolested, the protest would have probably died out within a few weeks. But once again, SCLC provoked white racists".[27] However, says Garrow, the situation was about to take "a turn for the worse".[59]

Prison release and tensions edit

 
Ku Klux Klan rally in St. Augustine, July 23, 1964: Note Charles Conley Lynch in the Confederate flag vest, holding microphone

King was released from jail the following day. Looking, according to Hayling, haggard and frightened", he refused to talk about his overnight imprisonment and left St. Augustine immediately,[51] traveling first to Harvard University to collect an honorary degree and then to Washington, DC to be photographed with Johnson.[60] King had ensured that "the nation's attention would be focused on the brutal actions of the Klan and the adamant stand elected officials of St. Augustine had taken to prevent demonstrators from protesting segregation".[61] Klan demonstrations continued over the next few days. On the 14th, Klansman, attorney, and leader of the newly founded National States Rights Party J. B. Stoner spoke before a large crowd at the Slave Market, declaring that "tonight, we're going to find out whether white people have any rights! When the Constitution said all men are created equal, it wasn't talking about niggers. The coons have been parading around St. Augustine for a long time."[48][note 13] King was accused of being a "longtime associate" of communism, while the Supreme Court was "Jew-stacked".[48][note 14] Accompanied by local Klan leader Charles Conley Lynch—whose trademark costume, notes Garrow, was a "vest cut from a Confederate battle flag"—Stoner "claimed that African Americans were sexually depraved brutes more closely related to apes than humans...The two men evoked the Lost Cause as a means to rally white males in defense of their wives and daughters".[62]

The same day King was released from jail, a number of city business leaders met at the Monson. These included Herbert E. Wofe, head of St. Augustine's largest bank, four executives from the Fairchild Stratos corporation, and the mayor. The businessmen proposed to the latter that he support the creation of a committee to examine racial tensions in the city.[63] This was not intended to have any black members, although, comments Bishop, "this oversight was called to their attention". The committee was then suggested to be a biracial one.[64] The mayor, however, saw this as surrendering to the SCLC, and refused.[63] The committee was, in any case, not indeed to have to negotiate with King or Abernethy, as it was deliberately phrased as wishing to deal with law-abiding locals.[64] Nor, indeed, did they wish to talk to locals they had not chosen: Hayling, although local, was deemed not to pass the "law-abiding" criterion, having already been arrested.[65]

In the background, an offer had been made by the city authorities to set up a biracial commission comprising five blacks and five whites.[59] This would investigate complaints regarding segregation in return for an end to the demonstrations and mass meetings; it was supported by the SCLC as a fair compromise, and at a secret meeting of St. Augustine businessmen, the new committee was also endorsed. A Grand Jury was due to decide the issue over the next few days.[59]

Protest meetings edit

On the evening of Wednesday, June 17, leading Reform rabbi Albert Vorspan and 16 colleagues[66] from eight different states[67] joined a mass-meeting in the St. Augustine Baptist Church, where King "announced their entrance to an enthusiastic crowd". Dresner addressed the crowd—the only member of the delegation with experience of these meetings—in the form of a call and response sermon.[66][note 15] The rabbis left the church and followed Fred Shuttlesworth, Andrew Young,[66]—King's deputy in the town[69]—and 300 others[59] on a long march to the old St. Augustine Slave Market,[66] which historian Clive Webb calls a "symbolic focus of protest" in St. Augustine.[10][note 16] and then to the Monson Motel.[59] The rabbis dispersed to the local homes where they being billeted, while King and his colleagues discussed strategy.[66] Branch argues that it was originally Hosea Williams' idea to launch an integration against a swimming pool, with the aim of maintaining popular momentum. However, "Williams suffered a ribbing when he refused to lead one of his own wild schemes...Williams admitted he could not swim".[66]

Protest edit

Protesters enter the motel edit

Shuttlesworth and C. T. Vivian led a group of around 50 supporters to Downtown's Monson Motor Lodge[66] at about 12:40 pm.[72] King observed the operation from a waterfront park over the road;[41] Again, Brock met the integrated group at the doors and again announced his was a segregated business.[72] By now, suggests Colburn, the almost daily marches to and trespasses on his business—combined with equal pressure from segregationists not to surrender—had worn away Brock's usual calm and pleasant demeanor, leaving him irritable and short-tempered. He had also received death threats.[72][note 17] Warren has described it as being a "rather comical scene, arranged primarily for its news value", particularly due to Brock's[73] "frantic, comical antics".[73] Described by Branch as "normally a bookish and controlled businessman", Brock locked the doors on the group on their arrival at 12:40 pm.[66][note 18]

Jewish prayers edit

In an attempt to distract the motel authorities from the activists' plans at the rear of the building, Rabbi Israel S. Dresner led 15 colleagues in an open-air Hebrew prayer meeting in the parking lot.[42] The rabbis requested Brock to allow them to enter his restaurant and eat, which he refused. He appears to have begun losing his temper when, on his refusal, the rabbis knelt to pray in his car park[66] for him.[72] At this, Brock—a Baptist deacon and a superintendent of the local Sunday School—lost control.[72] By now the police were on the scene, and Branch describes Brock as pushing each kneeling rabbi, one at a time, towards them to be arrested.[66]

Protesters enter pool edit

In the meantime, SCLC[42] activists Al Lingo and J. T. Johnson, leading a group of supporters,[42] attempted an integration:[42] this time, a "dive-in".[64] Again, the press had been alerted.[74] Seven minutes after the rabbis' arrival at the front door, shouts from the swimming pool drew everyone. There, they saw a number of young people swimming together, both black[66]—six men and a woman[73]—and white. Two white activists, both possessing room keys, indicating they were guests, stated that they had invited friends to use the pool, as they believed to be within their rights.[66]

Brock's harassment of protesters edit

News cameras began rolling.[73] Brock told the white swimmers "you're not putting these people in my pool",[72] and—"with exaggerated gusto", suggests Warren[73]—went to his office and brought out a 2 US gallons (7.6 L) drum of muriatic acid and poured it into the pool.[66][72] This was a cleaning fluid,[59] and Brock was "screaming that he would burn them out", comments Branch.[66][note 19] Brock also yelled that he was "cleaning the pool", a presumed reference to it now being, in his eyes, racially contaminated.[12] Another report states that he also allowed an alligator into the pool.[75]

Crowding and Dr. King's arrival edit

As they attempted to leave the pool, members of the straining crowd shouted numerous threats, including to shoot, stone, or drown the swimmers[66] and called for dogs.[76] Police held them back. By then, suggests Branch, both police and civilians were "enraged at the sight of the intermingled wet bodies"[66] and the audacity of it.[59] Brock appears to have "lost his cool",[42] and, weeping, shouted "I can't stand it, I can't stand it".[53] King and his party approached the motel only to be surrounded by hecklers. Hosea Williams later recalled wanting to "get the hell out of there" and feared that, on account of his being unable to swim, they were going to throw him in the pool.[77]

Arrest of protesters edit

Brock's attempt to force the protesters out did not work,[59] and, impatient at the slow progress the swimmers were making in leaving the pool,[78] Officer James Hewitt announced that they were all under arrest.[72] An off-duty policeman,[59] Officer Henry Billitz, jumped in—except for his shoes still fully clothed—in an attempt at dragging them out himself;[78] he beat them up as well.[30] Then-state attorney Dan R. Warren[note 20] later wrote how, from his office in the courthouse, he heard a "near riot" taking place from the motel, which was "only a block away".[73] By now there were over 100 people watching by the poolside. Colburn speculates that the SCLC's new integrationist tactics "had a greater impact than even they perhaps envisioned."[72] It also alienated the St. Augustine business community further; James Brock, for example, says Colburn, who had previously supported compromise, "conceded his attitude had changed as had those of his colleagues in the motel business".[79] Whites were told that this was an example of the future if blacks were given more rights.[65]

 
State Governor Farris Bryant, who ordained state rather than city law during the civil rights campaign

Three days before the integration,[80] the State Governor, Farris Bryant had ordained that state officers took custody of those arrested under riot conditions. However, local officers were intermingled with them outside the motel, and notes Branch, one "overwrought local deputy reached over and around a trooper to pummel one arrested swimmer most of the way from the pool to a State Police cruiser".[41] Still wet, they were arrested for trespassing.[59]

The arrest of Dresner and his fellow rabbis remains the record number of rabbis arrested on a single occasion.[42] While in prison overnight, the rabbis composed a document they titled "Common Testament", which Rabbi Eugene Borowitz wrote on the back of a KKK leaflet.[67] Following the rabbis' arrests, comments Bishop, "a wave of antisemitism swept through St. Augustine".[64]

Aftermath edit

Brock's reaction edit

Brock, according to Branch, was "enraged [and] feeling betrayed on both flanks for his moderation, drained and refilled his pool to purify it of integration".[41] He also hired armed guards for the swimming pool[33] and raised the Confederate flag above the motel.[41] It has been described as "one of the most significant events of the St. Augustine Civil Rights Movement".[42] Business leaders, meanwhile, reversed their earlier support for the biracial committee on the grounds that intensifying protests went against the spirit of the proposal. They were particularly concerned, argues Garrow, that King had intended to, in his words, "put the Monson out of business".[59] After all, says Warren, Brock's entire business was focused around the Monson and repeated demonstrations threatened its profitability.[17]

Official reactions edit

Two days after the integration, Bryant banned public demonstrations, but the violence continued unabated.[80] The all-white[65] grand jury summoned witnesses to the Monson integration and, instead of authorizing the biracial committee as had been expected, issued a new report. In this, they suggested that St. Augustine demonstrated "a solid background of harmonious race relations" with "a past history of non-discrimination in governmental affairs". Instead of granting the commission, the jury now attacked the motives of King and SCLC, asking whether they really wanted St. Augustine's issues solved; if they did, instructed the grand jury, King "and all others [were] to demonstrate their good faith by removing their influences from this community for a period of 30 days". If, after this period, King and the SCLC had done so, the jury said it would confirm the biracial commission.[59] In the event, all its white members resigned,[81] and the commission never met:[82] Bryant, suggests Webb, had only ever intended the prospect of the commission to "expedite a resolution to the crisis".[55] This was very much down to the Monson motel integration, argues Warren which, while it may have been intended as an almost-comic episode in the protest, "its impact on the jury's decision was anything but comical".[73]

Beach protest edit

 
Segregationists trying to prevent blacks from swimming at a "White only" beach in St. Augustine, June 25, 1964
 
Segregationists, highway patrol and black demonstrators at a "white only" beach, June 25, 1964

The same strategy was repeated less than a week later when SCLC activists performed a "wade-in" at the whites-only St. Augustine beach. On this occasion, violence broke out when the protesters were attacked by segregationists and multiple arrests were made by Florida Highway Patrol officers.[42] Armed gangs of both blacks and whites drove around shooting up cars and windows at night.[31]

Civil Rights Act of 1964 edit

However, on July 2 the same year, the Civil Rights Act was signed into United States Federal law,[note 21] This effectively enforced desegregation:[83]

The most immediate effect was to outlaw discrimination in hotels, restaurants, theaters, and other public accommodations. But the law had a far broader reach, barring employment discrimination on the basis of "race, color, religion, sex or national origin" and ending federal funding for discriminatory programs.[81]

The Civil Rights Act was passed by the Senate the day after the Monson Motel swim-in.[51] Jackson argues that, while the St. Augustine protest had probably been directly responsible for enabling the act to be passed, "locals had paid a heavy price". Unemployment went up as, not having security of employment, many were fired from their jobs.[84] An SCLC official later reported that St. Augustine had been "the toughest nut to crack" that he had encountered in his career of direct action; King, too, called it the "most lawless" place he had campaigned in.[85]

Desegregation of St. Augustine edit

Brock chaired a meeting of 80 local businessmen to decide how the business community would respond to the new act.[86] Brock told reporters that although his colleagues were, to a man, opposed on principle[87]— and although with "considerable unease", suggests Garrow—by a majority of 75, they agreed to abide by it. The unease stemmed from fears as to how the KKK would react to their adhering to desegregation, and he wrote to Judge Simpson requesting the aid of US Marshals from "the mob action that will undoubtedly occur".[86][note 22] With the Johnson administration refusing the aid of federal marshals, says, Oates, "St. Augustine had become a nightmare" for King and the SCLC.[88] On July 4, Brock, as the spokesman for the St. Augustine Hotel, Motel, and Restaurant Owners Association, stated that they "want[ed] to do everything we can to get our community back to normal with harmonious relations between the races".[89]

Segregationist protests of the Monson Motor Lodge edit

On Thursday July 9, 1964, James Brock welcomed the first black guests to the Monson Motor Lodge restaurant. Visitors were greeted at the entrance by a picket line; the confederate flag flew and placards announced "Niggers Ate Here".[90][note 23] Brock, suggests Warren, "would pay a high price for advocating harmony among the races",[89] and the Monson was picketed daily from this point.[91] Placards with slogans such as "gated establishments, carrying picket signs proclaiming "Delicious Food—Eat with Niggers Here", "Niggers Sleep Here—Would You?" and "Civil Rights Has To Go" were prominent. Brock asked Stoner, who was on the picket, why the Monson had been targeted; Stoner told him, "we're just trying to help you get some nigger business". [91] Blacks who attempted to eat at Monson were beaten before being driven away.[92]

The Monson Motor Lodge and its restaurant became the epicenter of a violent battle between civil rights supporters and white supremacists after blacks were banned from the facility in June 1964. The business bounced back and forth between segregation, integration, resegregation, and reintegration as the manager, James Brock, attempted to keep his business afloat in the escalating racial violence that followed the passage of the Civil Rights Act that summer. In a matter of weeks, the business experienced the picketing of thousands of civil rights supporters—including seventeen rabbis and Jewish activists who came at the request of Reverend Martin Luther King Jr—a Klan-sponsored fire-bombing of the restaurant, and Brock's dousing of black customers in the motel pool with muriatic acid.[93]

Marcie Cohen Ferris, The Edible South

Re-segregation of the Monson Motor Lodge edit

By July 16, Brock had de-integrated, partly in order, argues Branch, to avoid punishment from local klansmen. If this was the case, however, his attempt failed; Branch notes that, while he remained on good terms with the local KKK, the Monson was still firebombed by an out-of-state gang.[94] A few days later, the KKK held their biggest march yet, boasting that they had recruited significantly on the back of the pending Civil Rights Act.[95] The SCLC had brought a case against around 30 St. Augustine restaurants and eateries in an attempt to force them to integrate.[note 24] Warren recounts how Brock—"besieged operator of the now infamous Monson Motor Lodge"—personally testified to the court "his frustration in attempting to comply with the new law and demanded the court get Holstead Manucy and the picketers off his back".[95]

Legal hearings edit

As a result, following a two-day hearing, Florida Chief Justice Simpson ordered that blacks be allowed to eat at two restaurants in St. Augustine.[95] Holstead's testimony was punctuated by his pleading the fifth about 30 times on one day.[95] The SCLC attempted to show that a conspiracy existed to prevented enforcement of the new law. Brock testified that when he had first begun serving blacks and had been picketed, he had asked Manucy to "get the[m]...off his back". When Manucy denied having that kind of influence, Brock had disbelieved him, saying "you are the kingfish with these people". However, he told the court, it had not done any good, and the Monson continued to be picketed.[96] When Simpson pressed Brock to state who was with Manucy on these occasions, Brock requested that the judge not make him answer, telling Simpson, "you put me in an unpleasant position when you ask me this. I am a little bit afraid to be talking like this." Simpson ordered Brock to receive a bodyguard for the remainder of the hearings.[96]

Simpson's judgment was as the first federal ruling under the new Act, a "landmark", argues Warren. All parties were ordered to refrain from further violation;[96] Brock and his colleagues were to desegregate again in accordance with the law and "regardless of threats".[94][note 25] Brock did so, despite threats from the KKK.[97] On the evening of July 23, business leaders met at the Monson to discuss the legal options available to them. One strategy decided on was to allow themselves to be summonsed, as this might also persuade a judge to condemn the KKK picketing. The following morning, two white men threw a molotov cocktail into the lobby of the Monson,[98] causing damage valued at around $28307(adjusted for inflation).[99] For the rest of the day, comments Colburn, "those businesses who had not started turning blacks away now did".[98]

Dr. King visits St. Augustine edit

On August 5, King returned to St. Augustine for the first time since his release from jail.[97] He was concerned because the struggle there had taken a disproportionate amount of time and manpower, and, notes Bishop, "he was a man with a carefully planned schedule and the calendar of coming events was becoming crowded".[100][note 26]

Segregationist backlash edit

The following day the Monson Motel was firebombed.[97] Judge Simpson ordered Brock and his colleagues to obey the law and reintegrate: this, argues Oates, "gave them the excuse of external coercion to take down the "WHITES ONLY" signs—"what else can we do?'", they could ask.[102] Warren also describes Brock and colleagues as "pander[ing] to the Klan" by claiming "we're not capitulating to anybody...we had no other choice".[103] Simpson also passed a restraining order against both Davies and Manucy. This quotes Oates, "ended their reign of terror and moved Abernathy to quip that the movement changed Manucy "from a Hoss to a mule".[104] Not everyone was sympathetic to the St. Augustine business community. The State Attorney, James Kynes, watching from Tallahassee, had "little sympathy". He believed that businesses had encouraged white thugs to confront black picketers and demonstrators—if only through lack of protesting—so they could hardly now complain that the "monster" they had created "now ran amok in their city".[98] Historian David Mark Chalmers agrees, believing that, had business leaders told the sheriff to intervene against the Klan, he probably would have had to. However, "community leaders who had been willing to countenance violence against black people and integrationists found that they were now unable to control it or turn it off", and they were publicly blamed for that failure.[105] Webb, too, argues that silence implicitly equaled approval, particularly among restaurateurs, some of whom not only held KKK fundraisers but provided leading Klansmen and segregationists with free meals.[106]

Brock put out another association statement qualifying their support for the act: "We deplore the action of the Congress and the Courts in enforcing integration...integration of places of accommodation is obnoxious to us".[98] Some of Brock's colleagues put signs above their tills informing patrons that money earned from black customers would be donated to Barry Goldwater's current presidential campaign, as Goldwater was known to be anti-integrationist.[98]

Tourism downturn edit

The civil rights protests of June–July 1964 nearly witnessed the destruction of the St. Augustine tourist trade,[107] and a contemporary report declared that "the tourist trade is already off at least 50 per cent...and many a motel owner is threatened by bankruptcy and foreclosure".[21] Jackson estimates that St. Augustine lost approximately 122,000 tourists and $471781116 (adjusted for inflation) as a result of the protests,[84] which the historian Michael Honey has compared in their ferocity to those of Birmingham, Alabama and Baton Rouge, Louisiana.[108] An investigative committee announced by the state legislature eventually—and, comments Warren, with a "remarkable lack of understanding"—variously blamed King, the KKK, newspapers, and television, for racial problems that could otherwise "have been solved amicably by Negro and White citizens last summer had they been free from outside agitation." The committee also declared that such was the ultimate cost of the events of 1964, that the taxpayers of St. Augustine had effectively paid for King's visit.[109] Likewise, the SCLC campaign, argues Webb, failed to address the fundamental issues "of poverty and deprivation that afflicted the local black community".[55]

Racial tensions edit

St. Augustine celebrated its quadricentennial the following year. Tourists flocked, but there was a seething racial tension beneath the surface.[110] Although the business community had changed its policies if not its attitude towards racial integration by 1965, Blacks were still unsure, generally, of where they stood and few dined out in white motels or restaurants. One later said[111]

You can be pretty sure that if you eat at a white restaurant and they know who you are, your boss will be told that you're trying to stir up trouble. If they don't know you, you might be arrested after you leave so they can find out about you.[111]

Brock's bankruptcy edit

Tourism helped the desperately in-need city economy; hotels and motels, in particular, were fully booked. Brock, however, did not do as well as he might have hoped.[110] St. Augustine's main bank refused to provide financial cover,[112] and Brock had been consistently refused bank loans to cover costs incurred during the pickets and demonstrations the previous year. On May 2, 1965, he declared bankruptcy, stating[110]

I'd hoped right along that something good would happen that would enable me to continue in St. Augustine, but since June 11, the day I put Martin Luther King in jail, there's been some kind of a stigma I haven't been able to shake...I'd always been a moderate on the racial issue, and we always said we'd integrate if the bill was passed. Months before the bill came up, I had reason to feel that it would pass and the public accommodations action would be included. I tried my best to arrange quiet talks in our community.[113]

Official report edit

Nearly two years after the original disturbances, in June 1965, the Florida investigative Committee published its report, titled Racial and Civil Disorders in St. Augustine. The committee was careful to share the blame equally between the Klan and the SCLC, in both cases emphasizing that it was "out of town", rather than resident, elements who had caused the trouble between them.[114] Wade-ins and swim-ins remained a central tactic for Floridian blacks even after the passing of the Civil Rights Act, and laid the path of integrating other areas of society that were proving less than susceptible to change, such as green open spaces and schools.[115]

Legacy edit

 
John Milton Bryan Simpson plaque; following his death in 1987, he had a Jacksonville Courthouse named after him

Fate of the Monson Motor Lodge edit

Brock sold the Monson in 1998.[116] The motel and pool were demolished in March 2003 following five years of protests,[117] although not before its early modern foundations had been excavated.[note 27] Those who disagreed with the proposed demolition argued that it would eliminate one of the nation's important landmarks of the civil rights movement.[117] Author David Nolan told WJCT that "people would claim the motel had no historic significance, even though a large civil rights protest occurred there".[119] The owner, a local property developer, wanted to build a new corporate hotel, while opponents believed it would be a useful target for drawing more black tourists to Florida, something the state was attempting to do.[116][note 28] A city planner, on the other hand, commented "the Monson is not the only historical site [in St. Augustine]...This one just happens to have Martin Luther King involved".[116] The Hilton Bayfront Hotel was built on the site, although the steps of the Monson—where Brock and King had their "quiet chat"—have been preserved with a plaque to commemorate King's activism in the city.[120] Brock, interviewed in 1999, stated that "I don't feel sorry for any of that stuff. I have nothing to be ashamed of", as he was obeying the law of the time.[116]

Jewish commemoration edit

On June 18, 2015, the St. Augustine Jewish Historical Society commemorated the arrest of the rabbis 51 years earlier. The events, called "Why We Went to St. Augustine" included a public reading of the letter they jointly wrote in jail that night.[121]

In photographs and film edit

A number of iconic photographs were taken during the integration. One, by an Associated Press photographer caught Officer Billitz in mid-jump as he leapt into the pool. This appeared the next day on the front pages of the Miami Herald and New York Times.[41] Photographs of Brock pouring acid into the pool made international news headlines,[42] as well as proving ammunition for what has been termed King's "war of images".[33][note 29] This photograph has since been described as "infamous".[35][67] Warren notes, too, that due to the distance film had to travel for processing and distribution, for an event to hit the ABC, CBS and NBC six o'clock news bulletins, it had to take place before noon; as the swim-in had taken place just before, it was guaranteed to be headline news that evening.[122][76]

See also edit

Notes edit

  1. ^ The SCLC leadership was particularly concerned with a recent trend for young blacks to defend themselves physically from white racists and matching violence with violence, and intended the St. Augustine campaign "to demonstrate to blacks throughout the country that nonviolence was a much more effective instrument for change".[4]
  2. ^ Known as the "Ancient City",[2] St. Augustine had been founded in 1565 by the Spanish conquistador Pedro Menéndez de Avilés. It is the oldest continuously occupied settlement of European origin in the contiguous United States.[6][7] It is the second-oldest continuously inhabited city of European origin in United States territory after San Juan, Puerto Rico (founded in 1521).[8] Johnson's government had pledged 3302468 to the town to help finance the celebrations[9] and restore its architectural ruins.[10]
  3. ^ Burgess was the first black Episcopal bishop in the United States.[20]
  4. ^ Mrs Peabody's husband, notes Colburn, was unsurprised, commenting "that's the kind of thing she always does".[25] Sheriff Davis put a sign behind his desk that read:

    "St Johns County famous jail.
    Mrs Peabody of the Boston Peabodys
    Stayed here two nights
    Reasonable fines...$35 and up."[26]

  5. ^ Analogous to sit-ins in cafes and restaurants, wade-ins had first been used on St. Augustine's beaches in summer 1963.[30]
  6. ^ The KKK was already extremely active in St. Augustine and had made the national media with their kidnapping and beating of a local dentist and activist Robert Hayling. The klansmen were found not guilty of attempted murder; Hayling was found guilty of assaulting them.[31][32]
  7. ^ Brock was a Rotarian, head of the local Community Chest and president of the local Florida Hotel and Motel Association, among other things.[43]
  8. ^ Simpson, says Dorrien, "excoriated St. Augustine's concrete sweatboxes, miniature cells, and chicken coops customized for civil rights prisoners: 'Here is exposed, in its raw ugliness, studied and cynical brutality, deliberately contrived to break men physically and mentally'."[39]
  9. ^ They had sung "John the Baptist was a Baptist" in an Albany church together. [49]
  10. ^ By which King was referring to the Ole Miss riot of 1962. James Meredith, an African American, was stopped from enrolling at the University of Mississippi, even after the federal courts had ruled that he be admitted. Meredith traveled to Oxford under armed guard to register, but riots by segregationists broke out in protest of his admittance. That night, cars were burned, federal law enforcement was pelted with rocks, bricks and small arms fire, and university property was damaged by 3,000 rioters. Two civilians were killed by gunshot wounds, and the riot spread into adjacent areas of the city of Oxford.[52]
  11. ^ King had already attempted, without success, to persuade celebrities to come to St. Augustine; all had refused, except Marlon Brando, who had written to say he had wanted to but, unfortunately, he had a bleeding ulcer and "great personal strife" to deal with at the time.[50] Chalmers notes that "rabbis and ministers, white students and college professors, and black teenagers went to jail" instead.[53]
  12. ^ When the bill came before the full Senate for debate on March 30, a bloc southern Democratic Senators and one Republican Senator led by Richard Russell (D-GA) launched a filibuster to prevent its passage.[57] Said Russell: "We will resist to the bitter end any measure or any movement which would have a tendency to bring about social equality and intermingling, and amalgamation of the races in our (Southern) states".[58]
  13. ^ Stoner, suggests Chalmers, "whose skills with dynamite and in defending dynamiters gave him particular prestige in Klan circles [although] was not much of an orator".[28]
  14. ^ Following which, says Colaiaco, "Stoner led a mob of angry whites —bearing Confederate flags and signs reading 'Kill the Civil Rights Bill' and 'Put George Wallace on the Supreme Court'—to the black section of town" where they were accompanied by state troopers and dogs.[48]
  15. ^ Call and response derives from historical African roots which then entered the American diasporic tradition, and in doing so created a new, unique tradition in the United States.[68] Its use by a Jewish rabbi in a Southern Baptist church "astonished his colleagues... [and] evoked a tumultuous response", says Branch.[66]
  16. ^ Nightly marches to the Slave Market, originally the idea of Hosea Williams, had become a regular occurrence and often led to violence. On May 28, notes the rabbi and author Marc Schneier, "as Andrew Young led a column of marchers, they were set upon by Klansmen wielding chains and iron pipes. Local police looked on while Young was beaten unconscious. Newspapers and television stations ran pictures of the beating."[70] King saw night marches as a method of increasing the "creative tension" that would attract and hold the attention of the rest of the country.[34] Notes Colaiaco, "Sheriff Davis told Young and other black leaders: 'We are declaring martial law. You had no permit for the earlier marches, and no permits will be given for other marches'. SCLC had fomented the 'creative tension' they needed".[71]
  17. ^ Following one march on his motel, his mother-in-law had had a heart attack.[72]
  18. ^ Bookish, says Branch, to the extent that he "routinely showed reporters an office adding machine with his precise tabulation of integrationists arrested at Monson's, standing thus far at 239".[66]
  19. ^ This was a harmless threat, suggests Branch, as muriatic acid was a "relatively harmless" cleaning fluid that Brock had available,[66] although in a high enough concentration it can damage human tissue and organs.[30]
  20. ^ Warren was, at the time, one of those working on the Grand Jury's report that at this point was expected to appoint a biracial committee comprising five whites and five blacks.[73]
  21. ^ As Pub. L.Tooltip Public Law (United States) 88–352, 78 Stat. 241, enacted July 2, 1964.
  22. ^ Simpson disagreed, replying that "developments over the last twenty four hours make me extremely hopeful that the trouble you anticipate will not materialize".[86]
  23. ^ Events such as these led to President Johnson's political advisor, Lee C. White, informing him within the week that, in St. Augustine, many businesses which had complied with the Act had now resegregated, "claiming that they were afraid".[90]
  24. ^ There were officially two classes of defendants in the case: the eateries, for not segregating, and Manucy for not forcing them to do so.[95]
  25. ^ Simpson also rejected a case of contempt that had been brought against Bryant on the grounds that the State Governor could not be held responsible for the police's failure to uphold the law; he also transferred all the pending cases regarding civil rights protesters into Federal jurisdiction.[95]
  26. ^ King had, for example, notes Bishop:

    promised to devote himself to a summertime drive for Southern black voter registration; there was to be a big People-to-People March in the state of Mississippi to honor Medgar Evers; the Democratic National Convention was to be held in Atlantic City in August—and King wanted to be there to make his presence felt; the little town of Selma had been in the planning stage for more than a year, and the people there were waiting for Martin Luther King.[101]

  27. ^ Because there was would be no time to excavate the site between its destruction and commencement of building the new hotel, archaeologists booked into separate rooms while it was still open, dug holes in the floor, gathered their findings and then backfilled and moved onto other rooms.[118]
  28. ^ They made comparisons with Harlem, in New York, which highlighted its civil rights heritage tours to both black and white tourists.[116]
  29. ^ According to the author and the former deputy director for the National Archives and Records Administration Roger Bruns, it "was even picked up by Izvestia, the influential Soviet newspaper".[33]

References edit

  1. ^ King 1998, p. 138.
  2. ^ a b c Oates 1982, p. 286.
  3. ^ a b Colburn 1985, p. 64.
  4. ^ Colburn 1985, p. 62.
  5. ^ a b Dorrien 2018, p. 365.
  6. ^ NPS 2020a.
  7. ^ NPS 2020b.
  8. ^ Thompson 2014, p. 34.
  9. ^ a b c Oates 1982, p. 285.
  10. ^ a b c Webb 2010, p. 169.
  11. ^ a b c Bishop 1971, p. 340.
  12. ^ a b Snodgrass 2009, p. 181.
  13. ^ a b c Jackson 2007, p. 190.
  14. ^ a b c Chalmers 2003, p. 45.
  15. ^ Baldwin 2002, pp. 90–91.
  16. ^ a b c Garrow 1986, p. 330.
  17. ^ a b Warren 2008, p. 156.
  18. ^ Colburn 1985, pp. 92, 99.
  19. ^ Chalmers 2003, pp. 44–45.
  20. ^ a b c d e f g h Colaiaco 1988, p. 99.
  21. ^ a b c Scott 2018, p. 16.
  22. ^ Cobb 2008, p. 350.
  23. ^ a b c Colburn 1985, p. 91.
  24. ^ a b c Colburn 1985, p. 65.
  25. ^ a b c Colburn 1985, p. 67.
  26. ^ Nolan 1992, p. 77.
  27. ^ a b Colaiaco 1988, p. 100.
  28. ^ a b Chalmers 2003, p. 43.
  29. ^ Shaw 2018, p. 248.
  30. ^ a b c Cruz 2012, p. 254.
  31. ^ a b c Belknap 1987, p. 131.
  32. ^ Kirk 2005, p. 104.
  33. ^ a b c d e Bruns 2006, p. 102.
  34. ^ a b Oates 1982, p. 287.
  35. ^ a b Pellegrino 2013, p. 359.
  36. ^ "King's Speech: Remembering Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1961 Stop In Tampa". WUSF Public Media. January 15, 2013. Retrieved June 12, 2021.
  37. ^ Davis, Ennis (January 20, 2020). "Five Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. sites in Jacksonville". The Jaxson. from the original on April 13, 2019. Retrieved June 12, 2021.
  38. ^ "How Dr. MLK Jr.'s Legacy Still Lives On in Miami Today". Culture Crusaders. January 17, 2020. Retrieved June 12, 2021.
  39. ^ a b Dorrien 2018, p. 366.
  40. ^ Oates 1982, p. 289.
  41. ^ a b c d e f g h Branch 1998, p. 355.
  42. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Lindquist 2018, p. 76.
  43. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Branch 1998, p. 339.
  44. ^ a b c d e Warren 2008, p. 76.
  45. ^ a b c d e f g h Colburn 1985, p. 92.
  46. ^ a b c Garrow 1986, p. 331.
  47. ^ Bishop 1971, p. 343.
  48. ^ a b c d e Colaiaco 1988, p. 103.
  49. ^ Rieder 2008, p. 271.
  50. ^ a b c Branch 1998, p. 340.
  51. ^ a b c Oates 1982, p. 290.
  52. ^ Doyle 2001, pp. 78–81.
  53. ^ a b Chalmers 2003, p. 44.
  54. ^ Ellis 2013, p. 156.
  55. ^ a b c Webb 2010, p. 170.
  56. ^ a b Warren 2008, p. 77.
  57. ^ Loevy 1997, pp. 29–31.
  58. ^ Napolitano 2009, p. 188.
  59. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Garrow 1986, p. 333.
  60. ^ Joseph 2020, p. 76.
  61. ^ Warren 2008, pp. 77–78.
  62. ^ Garrow 1986, p. 172.
  63. ^ a b Colburn 1985, p. 94.
  64. ^ a b c d Bishop 1971, p. 344.
  65. ^ a b c Bishop 1971, p. 346.
  66. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Branch 1998, p. 354.
  67. ^ a b c Slate 2006, p. 550.
  68. ^ Epstein 1977, pp. 73, 199, 206.
  69. ^ Rieder 2008, p. 235.
  70. ^ Schneier 1999, p. 125.
  71. ^ Colaiaco 1988, p. 101.
  72. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Colburn 1985, p. 99.
  73. ^ a b c d e f g h Warren 2008, p. 118.
  74. ^ Colburn 1985, p. 98.
  75. ^ Haygood 2015, p. 179.
  76. ^ a b Colburn 1985, p. 100.
  77. ^ Oates 1982, p. 291.
  78. ^ a b Branch 1998, pp. 354–355.
  79. ^ Colburn 1985, p. 148.
  80. ^ a b Belknap 1987, p. 133.
  81. ^ a b Bruns 2006, p. 103.
  82. ^ Jackson 2007, p. 19.
  83. ^ Branch 1998, pp. 387–378.
  84. ^ a b Jackson 2007, pp. 190–191.
  85. ^ Oates 1982, p. 293.
  86. ^ a b c Garrow 1986, p. 337.
  87. ^ Colburn 1985, p. 110.
  88. ^ Oates 1982, p. 292.
  89. ^ a b Warren 2008, p. 157.
  90. ^ a b Branch 1998, p. 392.
  91. ^ a b Colburn 1985, p. 111.
  92. ^ Slate 2006, p. 567.
  93. ^ Ferris 2014, p. 281.
  94. ^ a b Branch 1998, p. 396.
  95. ^ a b c d e f Warren 2008, p. 167.
  96. ^ a b c Warren 2008, p. 168.
  97. ^ a b c Garrow 1986, p. 344.
  98. ^ a b c d e Colburn 1985, p. 150.
  99. ^ Colburn 1985, p. 112.
  100. ^ Bishop 1971, p. 345.
  101. ^ Bishop 1971, pp. 345–346.
  102. ^ Oates 1982, p. 2926.
  103. ^ Warren 2008, p. 155.
  104. ^ Oates 1982, p. 297.
  105. ^ Chalmers 2003, pp. 43, 45.
  106. ^ Webb 2010, p. 173.
  107. ^ Baranowski et al. 2019, p. 19.
  108. ^ Honey 2007, p. 207.
  109. ^ Warren 2008, p. 185.
  110. ^ a b c Warren 2008, p. 184.
  111. ^ a b Colburn 1985, p. 151.
  112. ^ Chalmers 2003, p. 90.
  113. ^ Warren 2008, pp. 184–185.
  114. ^ Webb 2010, p. 172.
  115. ^ Bush 2016, p. 117.
  116. ^ a b c d e Guzman 1999, p. F1.
  117. ^ a b Lewis 2003.
  118. ^ Milanich 2002, p. 53.
  119. ^ Mcintyre & Ross 2015.
  120. ^ Gordon 2015, p. 168.
  121. ^ Mcintyre 2015.
  122. ^ Warren 2008, p. 119.

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1964, monson, motor, lodge, protests, this, article, section, appears, contradict, itself, time, please, talk, page, more, information, november, 2020, 1964, monson, motor, lodge, protest, part, series, events, during, civil, rights, movement, united, states, . This article or section appears to contradict itself on time of day Please see the talk page for more information November 2020 The 1964 Monson Motor Lodge protest was part of a series of events during the civil rights movement in the United States which occurred on June 18 1964 at the Monson Motor Lodge in St Augustine Florida The campaign between June and July 1964 was led by Robert Hayling Martin Luther King Jr Ralph Abernathy Andrew Young Hosea Williams C T Vivian and Fred Shuttlesworth among others St Augustine was chosen to be the next battleground against racial segregation on account of it being both highly racist yet also relying heavily on the northern tourism dollar Furthermore the city was due to celebrate its 400th anniversary the following year which would heighten the campaign s profile even more Nightly marches to the slave market were organized which were regularly attacked and saw the marchers beaten 1964 Monson Motor Lodge protestPart of St Augustine movementin the Civil Rights MovementJames Brock pouring acid into his poolDateJune 18 1964LocationMonson Motor LodgeSt Augustine FloridaCaused byCivil Rights Bill debates in congress Racial segregation in FloridaGoalsDesegregationResulted inArrest of protesters Immediate backlash against civil rights protests Later desegregation Ku Klux Klan firebombing of the Monson Motor LodgePartiesProtesters Reform Rabbis Southern Christian Leadership Conference SCLC Segregationists Off duty police officersLead figuresAlbert VorspanHosea WilliamsIsrael S Dresner James Brock At the same time in the U S Senate the civil rights bill was being filibustered On June 10 this filibuster collapsed The following day King was arrested in St Augustine King had attempted to be served lunch at the Monson Motor Lodge but the owner James Brock who was also the president of the St Augustine Hotel Motel and Restaurant Owners Association refused to serve him King was arrested for trespass and jailed while imprisoned he wrote a letter to leading Jewish reformer Rabbi Israel Dresner urging him to recruit rabbis to come to St Augustine and take part in the movement This they did and at another confrontation at the Monson 17 rabbis were arrested on June 18 This was the largest mass arrest of rabbis in American history At the same time a group of black and white activists protesters who had arrived from Albany Georgia J T Johnson Brenda Darten and Mamie Nell Ford jumped into the Monson s swimming pool Brock appeared to pour muriatic acid into the pool to burn the protesters Photographs of this and of a policeman jumping into the pool in everything but his shoes to arrest them made headline news around the world By now the Civil Rights Act had been passed but St Augustine businesses particularly in the restaurant and culinary trades were slow at desegregating Eventually the courts forced Brock and his colleagues to integrate their businesses and soon after he did the Monson was firebombed by the Ku Klux Klan KKK who violently opposed desegregation The state judge was unsympathetic to his predicament however feeling that Brock and his colleagues had brought the violence of the KKK upon themselves they had taken advantage of it while it was in their favor and could not stop it now that it was not On June 30 Florida Governor Farris Bryant announced the formation of a biracial committee to restore interracial communication in St Augustine Although the Civil Rights Act had passed there were further problems for both Brock personally and Florida particularly He had been repeatedly refused bank loans to pay for the damage caused by the protests and declared himself bankrupt the following year Also in 1965 although the city celebrated its quadricentennial there was still a palpable underlying racial tension the tourist trade had been badly damaged and it has been estimated that St Augustine lost millions of dollars in tourism Hotel motels and restaurants were especially badly hit Contents 1 Background 1 1 SCLC planning 1 2 Choosing of St Augustine 1 3 James Brock 2 Prelude 2 1 Beginning the campaign 2 2 Sit in protest 2 3 Activist arrests 2 4 Civil Rights Bill debates 2 5 Prison release and tensions 2 6 Protest meetings 3 Protest 3 1 Protesters enter the motel 3 2 Jewish prayers 3 3 Protesters enter pool 3 4 Brock s harassment of protesters 3 5 Crowding and Dr King s arrival 3 6 Arrest of protesters 4 Aftermath 4 1 Brock s reaction 4 2 Official reactions 4 3 Beach protest 4 4 Civil Rights Act of 1964 4 5 Desegregation of St Augustine 4 6 Segregationist protests of the Monson Motor Lodge 4 7 Re segregation of the Monson Motor Lodge 4 8 Legal hearings 4 9 Dr King visits St Augustine 4 10 Segregationist backlash 4 11 Tourism downturn 4 12 Racial tensions 4 13 Brock s bankruptcy 4 14 Official report 5 Legacy 5 1 Fate of the Monson Motor Lodge 5 2 Jewish commemoration 6 In photographs and film 7 See also 8 Notes 9 References 9 1 BibliographyBackground editMain article St Augustine movement SCLC planning edit St Augustine Florida a beautiful town and our nation s oldest city was the scene of raging tempers flaring violence and the most corrupt coalition of segregationist opposition outside of Mississippi It was a stronghold of the Ku Klux Klan and the John Birch Society There the Klan made a last ditch stand against the nonviolent movement They flocked to St Augustine s Slave Market Plaza from all across north Florida Georgia and Alabama Klansmen abducted four Negroes and beat them unconscious with clubs ax handles and pistol butts St Augustine was a testing ground Can the Deep South change Could southern states maintain law and order in the face of change Could local citizens black and white work together to make democracy a reality throughout America 1 Martin Luther King on St Augustine Florida The Southern Christian Leadership Conference SCLC had decided to renew their campaign against segregation 2 and give new dignity to the movement 3 note 1 The leadership was originally divided on where to target James Bevel for example wanted to focus on one state Alabama whereas Hosea Williams advocated the Floridian seaside holiday town of St Augustine 5 St Augustine was approaching its 400th anniversary note 2 Although much smaller than previous civil rights battlegrounds such as Birmingham Alabama it was no less and probably more violently segregated argues author Jim Bishop Unlike Birmingham racial power lay not with the mayor and chief of police he says but in 11 H E Wolf banker and bigwig in the Democratic Party it was the St Augustine Record a mirror for white faces it was an organization called the Ancient City Hunting Club composed of rifle experts who sometimes made a sport of hunting two legged coons Politics was divided between two political groups the far right and the ultra far right Anyone who was plain right risked being called a Communist 11 Choosing of St Augustine edit For King recently named Time Magazine s Man of the Year 12 it was his preferred choice of non violent battlefield for expos ing Klan savagery to the eyes of the world 2 It was a highly segregated town argues the author Thomas E Jackson and its celebrations would be restricted to whites only It was deliberately chosen continues Jackson as it had a business elite vulnerable to negative publicity because it was dependent on northern tourist dollars a police force with close ties to the Klan and a reputation for brutal extralegal violence 13 Social ethicist and theologian Gary Dorrien has described St Augustine as Florida s most violently racist city a Klan stronghold policed by unabashedly racist thugs where Blacks who tried to enroll their children in public schools got their homes bombed 5 scholar Stephen B Oates says of St Augustine s law enforcement 9 However suggests Webb this was known to be a dangerous strategy The Florida Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights informed them that St Augustine was a segregated superbomb with an extremely short fuse 10 Here Sheriff L O Davis a buffoonish burly thuggish man employed an auxiliary force of one hundred deputies many of them prominent Klansmen to keep the niggers in line Here barrel chested Hoisted Hoss Manucy dressed in cowboy paraphernalia led a bunch of Klan style bullyboys who called themselves the Ancient City Gun Club They patrolled the county in radio cars with Confederate flags on their antennas harassing Negroes at will Manucy boasted that he had no vices that he didn t smoke drink or chase women All he did was beat and kill niggers 9 Law enforcement in St Augustine says David Chalmers can be summed up in the response to the Klansmen who rioted and the blacks who trespassed the formers bonds rarely rose above 236 while the latter s could run into thousands 14 The Mayor of St Augustine has been described by scholar L V Baldwin as a biblical fundamentalist who tolerated such lawlessness while insisting that God segregated the races when he made the skins a different color 15 received advance warning of the SCLC plans including that protesters would include figures such as Governor Peabody s mother The Boston Globe asked the mayor whether he had ever heard of her he had not When asked what would happen if during the protests she violated segregation laws the mayor replied if she comes down and breaks the law we are going to arrest her 3 James Brock edit David Garrow has described Brock as a relative moderate in the St Augustine business community 16 although he was personally a segregationist 14 Warren similarly has said that Brock was a decent man caught between the violence of the Klan and the unwillingness of community leaders to find meaningful ways to end segregation 17 while Colburn says he was usually gregarious and rather mild mannered religious man who suddenly found himself thrust into a civil rights struggle 18 Chalmers suggests that while he was willing to desegregate he dare not be the first 19 Brock later explained his position as he saw it if I integrated there wouldn t be more than one Negro a month registered at the motel but the first night I integrated all my windows would be busted in 14 Prelude editBeginning the campaign edit nbsp A segregationist being arrested June 1964 their bail bond was usually a fraction of their opponents The campaign in St Augustine effectively began on Easter Sunday March 29 1964 20 and was deliberately aimed at the city s food and tourism industries which argues sociologist Ralph C Scott were as much about race as they were about national and class privilege 21 This was also the first but not last time that the Monson Motor Lodge 20 at 32 Avenida Menendez 22 a big posh lily white motel 21 was to be targeted 20 Monson s was targeted because its owner James Brock was not only a prominent local businessman and president of the trade association but the motel was regularly patronized by reporters so was felt to provide easy access to the media 23 An interracial group which included the 72 year old mother of Massachusetts Governor Endicott Peabody and the wife of that state s Episcopal Bishop John Burgess 20 note 3 led by Reverend David Robinson 24 attempted to integrate the motel s restaurant 20 Peabody and Burgess and 37 others 24 were arrested and the affair made national headlines 20 The mayor condemned the protests not as local discontent over segregation but the work of scalawags from the north 24 Colburn argues that the arrest and subsequent imprisonment of this 72 year old drew the nation s attention to conditions in St Augustine as no other incident had It was a watershed in the community s race relations 25 note 4 It was not long before leading members of the SCLC Vivian Williams Lee Shuttlesworth and James Bevel arrived in St Augustine and launched workshops on non violent militant protest 20 Focussing on local businesses such as the Monson would the SCLC concluded apply fiscal pressure on the business community and persuade the local whites to see the benefit to granting concessions 27 and by the end of May the motel was subject to almost daily sit ins 28 Jackson suggests that as far as their strategy went King and the SCLC had learned from the Birmingham campaign of the previous year that vivid images of confrontation with black and white protesters putting their bodies on the line against white supremacists moved the nation more effectively than inspired preaching or patient lobbying 13 To increase pressure on authorities King and the SCLC turned to wade ins to integrate public pools and beaches 29 note 5 In retaliation large numbers of Ku Klux Klan KKK arrived in St Augustine in droves and commenced drive by shootings in black neighborhoods as well as attacking demonstrations with iron bars and bicycle chains 13 note 6 By now argues the historian Michael R Belnap St Augustine was slipping into chaos 31 Confrontations occurred by day and night one occasion King only narrowly managed to persuade the young men not to go home and fetch their guns Brun suggests that had they done so St Augustine would have gone down as the most violent racial battle in King s nonviolent movement 33 Sit in protest edit King arrived in St Augustine on Sunday May 31 34 and stayed in Lincolnville less than a mile from Monson Motor Lodge Lincolnville was home to prominent leaders of the black community 35 Apart from St Augustine King is known to have visited several other cities in Florida Such as Tampa in 1961 36 Jacksonville 37 and Miami several times 38 Dorrien posits that he was deliberately kept out of St Augustine by his colleagues as it was deemed too dangerous to risk his life there 39 At a strategy meeting he spoke of touching white hearts with Christian non violence His audience on the other hand says Bishop wondered if King knew their town white community leaders knew the SCLC s strategy They also knew that bigger and stronger cities had eventually come to agreements with King in return for peace on the streets St Augustine though was prepared to die on its feet rather than truckle to King comments Bishop 11 King had made a tactical decision to get arrested to intensify the struggle 16 As such he intended to take part in a sit in at Monson Motor Lodge s 25 a traditional and segregated motel and restaurant overlooking Matanzas Bay 40 At around 12 20 41 on June 11 King and his colleagues Ralph Abernathy Bernard Lee Clyde Jenkins 42 Will England 43 a white chaplain from Boston University 44 and five others 16 arrived at the Monson for lunch 41 The SCLC had alerted the press to King s presence 23 and several were there to witness King who wore a black badge with the word equal in white 45 arrive 41 The motel manager James Brock was also awaiting him on the welcome mat 23 Brock told his visitors that they were on private property 45 Although Brock tried to talk privately to King who introduced himself as Martin King microphones were pushed between them Newsmen jockeyed for position amid shouts of duck your head and get that flashgun down 45 The delegation attempted to enter the restaurant 42 but Brock told that the restaurant did not serve blacks King said they would wait until it did and some of those with him began a sit in 33 Brock s and King s conversation was polite 42 The manager told King and his party we can t serve you We re not integrated 43 He did state though that he would give them entrance should either they present a federal court order or if a group of St Augustine businessmen prevail upon me 45 Their discussion lasted around 15 minutes 46 Scholar David Colburn describes there being something of a carnival atmosphere to King and Brock s encounter particularly as King responded with sermon like replies 45 Brock eventually asked King and his party to leave but argues Colburn King had no intention of leaving He was there to be arrested 45 Their conversation ended with Brock beginning to lose his temper demanding of King will you take your nonviolent army somewhere else I have already had 85 people arrested here To this King replied we ll wait in the hope that the conscience of someone will be aroused 47 Abernethy asked why Brock had a sign welcoming tourists such as themselves 43 Brock publicly told King that the only blacks allowed on the premises were servants of white patrons who allowed them to eat in the service area 43 In response King asked Brock if he understood the humiliation our people go through 43 Brock in turn appealed to King to see it from his point of view As a respected local businessman he argued it would damage him and his social position if he allowed black people into his restaurant note 7 Asking that King understand Brock s responsibilities to his family he announced to the gathered reporters I would like to invite my many friends throughout the country to visit Monson s We expect to remain segregated 43 Activist arrests editHowever says Garrow Brock was becoming increasingly exasperated with the situation 46 and appears to have called the police 44 46 In the meantime other customers had arrived at the motel and interrupting Brock and King s discussion 45 a white customer asked if the restaurant was open yet Brock replied in the affirmative and the customer physically pushed his way through King s party calling King a black bastard as he did so 43 At this point the Chief of police Virgil Stuart and Sheriff L O Davis 44 arrived in possession of arrest warrant for breach of the peace conspiracy and trespass against King and his colleagues 43 Brock says Colburn breathed a sigh of relief 45 King and his companions were arrested under Florida s unwanted guest law 48 Branch describes how then 43 Eight volunteers including a white woman stepped forward on Davis s announcement that he would accommodate anyone who wanted to join King in jail A Negro teenager changed his mind when asked pointedly by Stuart if he were sure 43 King and his colleagues refused to post bail which led automatically to their imprisonment in the crowded St John s County Jail 44 note 8 Fear of a jailhouse lynching led King to be moved to Jacksonville Before he was sent there and wishing says Branch to maintain the spirit of the St Augustine movement King wrote to Israel Sy Dresner in New York who as a 1961 Freedom Rider had supported King on a previous occasion note 9 requesting him to come to St Augustine and act as an independent witness to events 50 King also telegraphed Johnson to tell him that he had witnessed most complete breakdown of law and order since Oxford Mississippi 51 note 10 Dear Sy I am dictating this letter from the St Augustine City Jail Perhaps if this letter could be read to your brethren next week it might be considered a call to St Augustine I would imagine that some 30 or so rabbis would make a tremendous impact on this community and the nation We would hope that some would be prepared to submit to arrest 50 note 11 Johnson replied to King s telegram and was keen to know if it pleased King who was known to have been upset at having heard an unfounded rumor that Johnson was intending to drop his support for the Bill Johnson also wanted King to know that the White House was in contact with the State Governor 54 While in prison says Webb King also secretly testified to a grand jury that he would prevent future night marches if a biracial commission were to be established 55 Civil Rights Bill debates edit Furthermore comments scholar Dan Warren a Civil Rights Bill was being filibustered before the Senate which made King s arrests particularly timely 44 The filibuster had been on going for 75 days 56 note 12 and on the same night King was arrested the Senate voted for cloture of the debate 56 the first time in United States history that the Senate had closed down one of its own debates on civil rights the passage of the bill was now virtually inevitable 48 It is possible argues the scholar James A Colaiaco that had the white population of St Augustine continued to allow the demonstrators to march unmolested the protest would have probably died out within a few weeks But once again SCLC provoked white racists 27 However says Garrow the situation was about to take a turn for the worse 59 Prison release and tensions edit nbsp Ku Klux Klan rally in St Augustine July 23 1964 Note Charles Conley Lynch in the Confederate flag vest holding microphoneKing was released from jail the following day Looking according to Hayling haggard and frightened he refused to talk about his overnight imprisonment and left St Augustine immediately 51 traveling first to Harvard University to collect an honorary degree and then to Washington DC to be photographed with Johnson 60 King had ensured that the nation s attention would be focused on the brutal actions of the Klan and the adamant stand elected officials of St Augustine had taken to prevent demonstrators from protesting segregation 61 Klan demonstrations continued over the next few days On the 14th Klansman attorney and leader of the newly founded National States Rights Party J B Stoner spoke before a large crowd at the Slave Market declaring that tonight we re going to find out whether white people have any rights When the Constitution said all men are created equal it wasn t talking about niggers The coons have been parading around St Augustine for a long time 48 note 13 King was accused of being a longtime associate of communism while the Supreme Court was Jew stacked 48 note 14 Accompanied by local Klan leader Charles Conley Lynch whose trademark costume notes Garrow was a vest cut from a Confederate battle flag Stoner claimed that African Americans were sexually depraved brutes more closely related to apes than humans The two men evoked the Lost Cause as a means to rally white males in defense of their wives and daughters 62 The same day King was released from jail a number of city business leaders met at the Monson These included Herbert E Wofe head of St Augustine s largest bank four executives from the Fairchild Stratos corporation and the mayor The businessmen proposed to the latter that he support the creation of a committee to examine racial tensions in the city 63 This was not intended to have any black members although comments Bishop this oversight was called to their attention The committee was then suggested to be a biracial one 64 The mayor however saw this as surrendering to the SCLC and refused 63 The committee was in any case not indeed to have to negotiate with King or Abernethy as it was deliberately phrased as wishing to deal with law abiding locals 64 Nor indeed did they wish to talk to locals they had not chosen Hayling although local was deemed not to pass the law abiding criterion having already been arrested 65 In the background an offer had been made by the city authorities to set up a biracial commission comprising five blacks and five whites 59 This would investigate complaints regarding segregation in return for an end to the demonstrations and mass meetings it was supported by the SCLC as a fair compromise and at a secret meeting of St Augustine businessmen the new committee was also endorsed A Grand Jury was due to decide the issue over the next few days 59 Protest meetings edit On the evening of Wednesday June 17 leading Reform rabbi Albert Vorspan and 16 colleagues 66 from eight different states 67 joined a mass meeting in the St Augustine Baptist Church where King announced their entrance to an enthusiastic crowd Dresner addressed the crowd the only member of the delegation with experience of these meetings in the form of a call and response sermon 66 note 15 The rabbis left the church and followed Fred Shuttlesworth Andrew Young 66 King s deputy in the town 69 and 300 others 59 on a long march to the old St Augustine Slave Market 66 which historian Clive Webb calls a symbolic focus of protest in St Augustine 10 note 16 and then to the Monson Motel 59 The rabbis dispersed to the local homes where they being billeted while King and his colleagues discussed strategy 66 Branch argues that it was originally Hosea Williams idea to launch an integration against a swimming pool with the aim of maintaining popular momentum However Williams suffered a ribbing when he refused to lead one of his own wild schemes Williams admitted he could not swim 66 Protest editProtesters enter the motel edit Shuttlesworth and C T Vivian led a group of around 50 supporters to Downtown s Monson Motor Lodge 66 at about 12 40 pm 72 King observed the operation from a waterfront park over the road 41 Again Brock met the integrated group at the doors and again announced his was a segregated business 72 By now suggests Colburn the almost daily marches to and trespasses on his business combined with equal pressure from segregationists not to surrender had worn away Brock s usual calm and pleasant demeanor leaving him irritable and short tempered He had also received death threats 72 note 17 Warren has described it as being a rather comical scene arranged primarily for its news value particularly due to Brock s 73 frantic comical antics 73 Described by Branch as normally a bookish and controlled businessman Brock locked the doors on the group on their arrival at 12 40 pm 66 note 18 Jewish prayers edit In an attempt to distract the motel authorities from the activists plans at the rear of the building Rabbi Israel S Dresner led 15 colleagues in an open air Hebrew prayer meeting in the parking lot 42 The rabbis requested Brock to allow them to enter his restaurant and eat which he refused He appears to have begun losing his temper when on his refusal the rabbis knelt to pray in his car park 66 for him 72 At this Brock a Baptist deacon and a superintendent of the local Sunday School lost control 72 By now the police were on the scene and Branch describes Brock as pushing each kneeling rabbi one at a time towards them to be arrested 66 Protesters enter pool edit In the meantime SCLC 42 activists Al Lingo and J T Johnson leading a group of supporters 42 attempted an integration 42 this time a dive in 64 Again the press had been alerted 74 Seven minutes after the rabbis arrival at the front door shouts from the swimming pool drew everyone There they saw a number of young people swimming together both black 66 six men and a woman 73 and white Two white activists both possessing room keys indicating they were guests stated that they had invited friends to use the pool as they believed to be within their rights 66 Brock s harassment of protesters edit News cameras began rolling 73 Brock told the white swimmers you re not putting these people in my pool 72 and with exaggerated gusto suggests Warren 73 went to his office and brought out a 2 US gallons 7 6 L drum of muriatic acid and poured it into the pool 66 72 This was a cleaning fluid 59 and Brock was screaming that he would burn them out comments Branch 66 note 19 Brock also yelled that he was cleaning the pool a presumed reference to it now being in his eyes racially contaminated 12 Another report states that he also allowed an alligator into the pool 75 Crowding and Dr King s arrival edit As they attempted to leave the pool members of the straining crowd shouted numerous threats including to shoot stone or drown the swimmers 66 and called for dogs 76 Police held them back By then suggests Branch both police and civilians were enraged at the sight of the intermingled wet bodies 66 and the audacity of it 59 Brock appears to have lost his cool 42 and weeping shouted I can t stand it I can t stand it 53 King and his party approached the motel only to be surrounded by hecklers Hosea Williams later recalled wanting to get the hell out of there and feared that on account of his being unable to swim they were going to throw him in the pool 77 Arrest of protesters edit Brock s attempt to force the protesters out did not work 59 and impatient at the slow progress the swimmers were making in leaving the pool 78 Officer James Hewitt announced that they were all under arrest 72 An off duty policeman 59 Officer Henry Billitz jumped in except for his shoes still fully clothed in an attempt at dragging them out himself 78 he beat them up as well 30 Then state attorney Dan R Warren note 20 later wrote how from his office in the courthouse he heard a near riot taking place from the motel which was only a block away 73 By now there were over 100 people watching by the poolside Colburn speculates that the SCLC s new integrationist tactics had a greater impact than even they perhaps envisioned 72 It also alienated the St Augustine business community further James Brock for example says Colburn who had previously supported compromise conceded his attitude had changed as had those of his colleagues in the motel business 79 Whites were told that this was an example of the future if blacks were given more rights 65 nbsp State Governor Farris Bryant who ordained state rather than city law during the civil rights campaignThree days before the integration 80 the State Governor Farris Bryant had ordained that state officers took custody of those arrested under riot conditions However local officers were intermingled with them outside the motel and notes Branch one overwrought local deputy reached over and around a trooper to pummel one arrested swimmer most of the way from the pool to a State Police cruiser 41 Still wet they were arrested for trespassing 59 The arrest of Dresner and his fellow rabbis remains the record number of rabbis arrested on a single occasion 42 While in prison overnight the rabbis composed a document they titled Common Testament which Rabbi Eugene Borowitz wrote on the back of a KKK leaflet 67 Following the rabbis arrests comments Bishop a wave of antisemitism swept through St Augustine 64 Aftermath editBrock s reaction edit Brock according to Branch was enraged and feeling betrayed on both flanks for his moderation drained and refilled his pool to purify it of integration 41 He also hired armed guards for the swimming pool 33 and raised the Confederate flag above the motel 41 It has been described as one of the most significant events of the St Augustine Civil Rights Movement 42 Business leaders meanwhile reversed their earlier support for the biracial committee on the grounds that intensifying protests went against the spirit of the proposal They were particularly concerned argues Garrow that King had intended to in his words put the Monson out of business 59 After all says Warren Brock s entire business was focused around the Monson and repeated demonstrations threatened its profitability 17 Official reactions edit Two days after the integration Bryant banned public demonstrations but the violence continued unabated 80 The all white 65 grand jury summoned witnesses to the Monson integration and instead of authorizing the biracial committee as had been expected issued a new report In this they suggested that St Augustine demonstrated a solid background of harmonious race relations with a past history of non discrimination in governmental affairs Instead of granting the commission the jury now attacked the motives of King and SCLC asking whether they really wanted St Augustine s issues solved if they did instructed the grand jury King and all others were to demonstrate their good faith by removing their influences from this community for a period of 30 days If after this period King and the SCLC had done so the jury said it would confirm the biracial commission 59 In the event all its white members resigned 81 and the commission never met 82 Bryant suggests Webb had only ever intended the prospect of the commission to expedite a resolution to the crisis 55 This was very much down to the Monson motel integration argues Warren which while it may have been intended as an almost comic episode in the protest its impact on the jury s decision was anything but comical 73 Beach protest edit nbsp Segregationists trying to prevent blacks from swimming at a White only beach in St Augustine June 25 1964 nbsp Segregationists highway patrol and black demonstrators at a white only beach June 25 1964The same strategy was repeated less than a week later when SCLC activists performed a wade in at the whites only St Augustine beach On this occasion violence broke out when the protesters were attacked by segregationists and multiple arrests were made by Florida Highway Patrol officers 42 Armed gangs of both blacks and whites drove around shooting up cars and windows at night 31 Civil Rights Act of 1964 edit However on July 2 the same year the Civil Rights Act was signed into United States Federal law note 21 This effectively enforced desegregation 83 The most immediate effect was to outlaw discrimination in hotels restaurants theaters and other public accommodations But the law had a far broader reach barring employment discrimination on the basis of race color religion sex or national origin and ending federal funding for discriminatory programs 81 The Civil Rights Act was passed by the Senate the day after the Monson Motel swim in 51 Jackson argues that while the St Augustine protest had probably been directly responsible for enabling the act to be passed locals had paid a heavy price Unemployment went up as not having security of employment many were fired from their jobs 84 An SCLC official later reported that St Augustine had been the toughest nut to crack that he had encountered in his career of direct action King too called it the most lawless place he had campaigned in 85 Desegregation of St Augustine edit Brock chaired a meeting of 80 local businessmen to decide how the business community would respond to the new act 86 Brock told reporters that although his colleagues were to a man opposed on principle 87 and although with considerable unease suggests Garrow by a majority of 75 they agreed to abide by it The unease stemmed from fears as to how the KKK would react to their adhering to desegregation and he wrote to Judge Simpson requesting the aid of US Marshals from the mob action that will undoubtedly occur 86 note 22 With the Johnson administration refusing the aid of federal marshals says Oates St Augustine had become a nightmare for King and the SCLC 88 On July 4 Brock as the spokesman for the St Augustine Hotel Motel and Restaurant Owners Association stated that they want ed to do everything we can to get our community back to normal with harmonious relations between the races 89 Segregationist protests of the Monson Motor Lodge editOn Thursday July 9 1964 James Brock welcomed the first black guests to the Monson Motor Lodge restaurant Visitors were greeted at the entrance by a picket line the confederate flag flew and placards announced Niggers Ate Here 90 note 23 Brock suggests Warren would pay a high price for advocating harmony among the races 89 and the Monson was picketed daily from this point 91 Placards with slogans such as gated establishments carrying picket signs proclaiming Delicious Food Eat with Niggers Here Niggers Sleep Here Would You and Civil Rights Has To Go were prominent Brock asked Stoner who was on the picket why the Monson had been targeted Stoner told him we re just trying to help you get some nigger business 91 Blacks who attempted to eat at Monson were beaten before being driven away 92 The Monson Motor Lodge and its restaurant became the epicenter of a violent battle between civil rights supporters and white supremacists after blacks were banned from the facility in June 1964 The business bounced back and forth between segregation integration resegregation and reintegration as the manager James Brock attempted to keep his business afloat in the escalating racial violence that followed the passage of the Civil Rights Act that summer In a matter of weeks the business experienced the picketing of thousands of civil rights supporters including seventeen rabbis and Jewish activists who came at the request of Reverend Martin Luther King Jr a Klan sponsored fire bombing of the restaurant and Brock s dousing of black customers in the motel pool with muriatic acid 93 Marcie Cohen Ferris The Edible South Re segregation of the Monson Motor Lodge edit By July 16 Brock had de integrated partly in order argues Branch to avoid punishment from local klansmen If this was the case however his attempt failed Branch notes that while he remained on good terms with the local KKK the Monson was still firebombed by an out of state gang 94 A few days later the KKK held their biggest march yet boasting that they had recruited significantly on the back of the pending Civil Rights Act 95 The SCLC had brought a case against around 30 St Augustine restaurants and eateries in an attempt to force them to integrate note 24 Warren recounts how Brock besieged operator of the now infamous Monson Motor Lodge personally testified to the court his frustration in attempting to comply with the new law and demanded the court get Holstead Manucy and the picketers off his back 95 Legal hearings edit As a result following a two day hearing Florida Chief Justice Simpson ordered that blacks be allowed to eat at two restaurants in St Augustine 95 Holstead s testimony was punctuated by his pleading the fifth about 30 times on one day 95 The SCLC attempted to show that a conspiracy existed to prevented enforcement of the new law Brock testified that when he had first begun serving blacks and had been picketed he had asked Manucy to get the m off his back When Manucy denied having that kind of influence Brock had disbelieved him saying you are the kingfish with these people However he told the court it had not done any good and the Monson continued to be picketed 96 When Simpson pressed Brock to state who was with Manucy on these occasions Brock requested that the judge not make him answer telling Simpson you put me in an unpleasant position when you ask me this I am a little bit afraid to be talking like this Simpson ordered Brock to receive a bodyguard for the remainder of the hearings 96 Simpson s judgment was as the first federal ruling under the new Act a landmark argues Warren All parties were ordered to refrain from further violation 96 Brock and his colleagues were to desegregate again in accordance with the law and regardless of threats 94 note 25 Brock did so despite threats from the KKK 97 On the evening of July 23 business leaders met at the Monson to discuss the legal options available to them One strategy decided on was to allow themselves to be summonsed as this might also persuade a judge to condemn the KKK picketing The following morning two white men threw a molotov cocktail into the lobby of the Monson 98 causing damage valued at around 28307 adjusted for inflation 99 For the rest of the day comments Colburn those businesses who had not started turning blacks away now did 98 Dr King visits St Augustine edit On August 5 King returned to St Augustine for the first time since his release from jail 97 He was concerned because the struggle there had taken a disproportionate amount of time and manpower and notes Bishop he was a man with a carefully planned schedule and the calendar of coming events was becoming crowded 100 note 26 Segregationist backlash edit The following day the Monson Motel was firebombed 97 Judge Simpson ordered Brock and his colleagues to obey the law and reintegrate this argues Oates gave them the excuse of external coercion to take down the WHITES ONLY signs what else can we do they could ask 102 Warren also describes Brock and colleagues as pander ing to the Klan by claiming we re not capitulating to anybody we had no other choice 103 Simpson also passed a restraining order against both Davies and Manucy This quotes Oates ended their reign of terror and moved Abernathy to quip that the movement changed Manucy from a Hoss to a mule 104 Not everyone was sympathetic to the St Augustine business community The State Attorney James Kynes watching from Tallahassee had little sympathy He believed that businesses had encouraged white thugs to confront black picketers and demonstrators if only through lack of protesting so they could hardly now complain that the monster they had created now ran amok in their city 98 Historian David Mark Chalmers agrees believing that had business leaders told the sheriff to intervene against the Klan he probably would have had to However community leaders who had been willing to countenance violence against black people and integrationists found that they were now unable to control it or turn it off and they were publicly blamed for that failure 105 Webb too argues that silence implicitly equaled approval particularly among restaurateurs some of whom not only held KKK fundraisers but provided leading Klansmen and segregationists with free meals 106 Brock put out another association statement qualifying their support for the act We deplore the action of the Congress and the Courts in enforcing integration integration of places of accommodation is obnoxious to us 98 Some of Brock s colleagues put signs above their tills informing patrons that money earned from black customers would be donated to Barry Goldwater s current presidential campaign as Goldwater was known to be anti integrationist 98 Tourism downturn edit The civil rights protests of June July 1964 nearly witnessed the destruction of the St Augustine tourist trade 107 and a contemporary report declared that the tourist trade is already off at least 50 per cent and many a motel owner is threatened by bankruptcy and foreclosure 21 Jackson estimates that St Augustine lost approximately 122 000 tourists and 471781116 adjusted for inflation as a result of the protests 84 which the historian Michael Honey has compared in their ferocity to those of Birmingham Alabama and Baton Rouge Louisiana 108 An investigative committee announced by the state legislature eventually and comments Warren with a remarkable lack of understanding variously blamed King the KKK newspapers and television for racial problems that could otherwise have been solved amicably by Negro and White citizens last summer had they been free from outside agitation The committee also declared that such was the ultimate cost of the events of 1964 that the taxpayers of St Augustine had effectively paid for King s visit 109 Likewise the SCLC campaign argues Webb failed to address the fundamental issues of poverty and deprivation that afflicted the local black community 55 Racial tensions edit St Augustine celebrated its quadricentennial the following year Tourists flocked but there was a seething racial tension beneath the surface 110 Although the business community had changed its policies if not its attitude towards racial integration by 1965 Blacks were still unsure generally of where they stood and few dined out in white motels or restaurants One later said 111 You can be pretty sure that if you eat at a white restaurant and they know who you are your boss will be told that you re trying to stir up trouble If they don t know you you might be arrested after you leave so they can find out about you 111 Brock s bankruptcy edit Tourism helped the desperately in need city economy hotels and motels in particular were fully booked Brock however did not do as well as he might have hoped 110 St Augustine s main bank refused to provide financial cover 112 and Brock had been consistently refused bank loans to cover costs incurred during the pickets and demonstrations the previous year On May 2 1965 he declared bankruptcy stating 110 I d hoped right along that something good would happen that would enable me to continue in St Augustine but since June 11 the day I put Martin Luther King in jail there s been some kind of a stigma I haven t been able to shake I d always been a moderate on the racial issue and we always said we d integrate if the bill was passed Months before the bill came up I had reason to feel that it would pass and the public accommodations action would be included I tried my best to arrange quiet talks in our community 113 Official report edit Nearly two years after the original disturbances in June 1965 the Florida investigative Committee published its report titled Racial and Civil Disorders in St Augustine The committee was careful to share the blame equally between the Klan and the SCLC in both cases emphasizing that it was out of town rather than resident elements who had caused the trouble between them 114 Wade ins and swim ins remained a central tactic for Floridian blacks even after the passing of the Civil Rights Act and laid the path of integrating other areas of society that were proving less than susceptible to change such as green open spaces and schools 115 Legacy edit nbsp John Milton Bryan Simpson plaque following his death in 1987 he had a Jacksonville Courthouse named after himFate of the Monson Motor Lodge edit Brock sold the Monson in 1998 116 The motel and pool were demolished in March 2003 following five years of protests 117 although not before its early modern foundations had been excavated note 27 Those who disagreed with the proposed demolition argued that it would eliminate one of the nation s important landmarks of the civil rights movement 117 Author David Nolan told WJCT that people would claim the motel had no historic significance even though a large civil rights protest occurred there 119 The owner a local property developer wanted to build a new corporate hotel while opponents believed it would be a useful target for drawing more black tourists to Florida something the state was attempting to do 116 note 28 A city planner on the other hand commented the Monson is not the only historical site in St Augustine This one just happens to have Martin Luther King involved 116 The Hilton Bayfront Hotel was built on the site although the steps of the Monson where Brock and King had their quiet chat have been preserved with a plaque to commemorate King s activism in the city 120 Brock interviewed in 1999 stated that I don t feel sorry for any of that stuff I have nothing to be ashamed of as he was obeying the law of the time 116 Jewish commemoration edit On June 18 2015 the St Augustine Jewish Historical Society commemorated the arrest of the rabbis 51 years earlier The events called Why We Went to St Augustine included a public reading of the letter they jointly wrote in jail that night 121 In photographs and film editA number of iconic photographs were taken during the integration One by an Associated Press photographer caught Officer Billitz in mid jump as he leapt into the pool This appeared the next day on the front pages of the Miami Herald and New York Times 41 Photographs of Brock pouring acid into the pool made international news headlines 42 as well as proving ammunition for what has been termed King s war of images 33 note 29 This photograph has since been described as infamous 35 67 Warren notes too that due to the distance film had to travel for processing and distribution for an event to hit the ABC CBS and NBC six o clock news bulletins it had to take place before noon as the swim in had taken place just before it was guaranteed to be headline news that evening 122 76 See also editList of incidents of civil unrest in the United StatesNotes edit The SCLC leadership was particularly concerned with a recent trend for young blacks to defend themselves physically from white racists and matching violence with violence and intended the St Augustine campaign to demonstrate to blacks throughout the country that nonviolence was a much more effective instrument for change 4 Known as the Ancient City 2 St Augustine had been founded in 1565 by the Spanish conquistador Pedro Menendez de Aviles It is the oldest continuously occupied settlement of European origin in the contiguous United States 6 7 It is the second oldest continuously inhabited city of European origin in United States territory after San Juan Puerto Rico founded in 1521 8 Johnson s government had pledged 3302468 to the town to help finance the celebrations 9 and restore its architectural ruins 10 Burgess was the first black Episcopal bishop in the United States 20 Mrs Peabody s husband notes Colburn was unsurprised commenting that s the kind of thing she always does 25 Sheriff Davis put a sign behind his desk that read St Johns County famous jail Mrs Peabody of the Boston Peabodys Stayed here two nights Reasonable fines 35 and up 26 Analogous to sit ins in cafes and restaurants wade ins had first been used on St Augustine s beaches in summer 1963 30 The KKK was already extremely active in St Augustine and had made the national media with their kidnapping and beating of a local dentist and activist Robert Hayling The klansmen were found not guilty of attempted murder Hayling was found guilty of assaulting them 31 32 Brock was a Rotarian head of the local Community Chest and president of the local Florida Hotel and Motel Association among other things 43 Simpson says Dorrien excoriated St Augustine s concrete sweatboxes miniature cells and chicken coops customized for civil rights prisoners Here is exposed in its raw ugliness studied and cynical brutality deliberately contrived to break men physically and mentally 39 They had sung John the Baptist was a Baptist in an Albany church together 49 By which King was referring to the Ole Miss riot of 1962 James Meredith an African American was stopped from enrolling at the University of Mississippi even after the federal courts had ruled that he be admitted Meredith traveled to Oxford under armed guard to register but riots by segregationists broke out in protest of his admittance That night cars were burned federal law enforcement was pelted with rocks bricks and small arms fire and university property was damaged by 3 000 rioters Two civilians were killed by gunshot wounds and the riot spread into adjacent areas of the city of Oxford 52 King had already attempted without success to persuade celebrities to come to St Augustine all had refused except Marlon Brando who had written to say he had wanted to but unfortunately he had a bleeding ulcer and great personal strife to deal with at the time 50 Chalmers notes that rabbis and ministers white students and college professors and black teenagers went to jail instead 53 When the bill came before the full Senate for debate on March 30 a bloc southern Democratic Senators and one Republican Senator led by Richard Russell D GA launched a filibuster to prevent its passage 57 Said Russell We will resist to the bitter end any measure or any movement which would have a tendency to bring about social equality and intermingling and amalgamation of the races in our Southern states 58 Stoner suggests Chalmers whose skills with dynamite and in defending dynamiters gave him particular prestige in Klan circles although was not much of an orator 28 Following which says Colaiaco Stoner led a mob of angry whites bearing Confederate flags and signs reading Kill the Civil Rights Bill and Put George Wallace on the Supreme Court to the black section of town where they were accompanied by state troopers and dogs 48 Call and response derives from historical African roots which then entered the American diasporic tradition and in doing so created a new unique tradition in the United States 68 Its use by a Jewish rabbi in a Southern Baptist church astonished his colleagues and evoked a tumultuous response says Branch 66 Nightly marches to the Slave Market originally the idea of Hosea Williams had become a regular occurrence and often led to violence On May 28 notes the rabbi and author Marc Schneier as Andrew Young led a column of marchers they were set upon by Klansmen wielding chains and iron pipes Local police looked on while Young was beaten unconscious Newspapers and television stations ran pictures of the beating 70 King saw night marches as a method of increasing the creative tension that would attract and hold the attention of the rest of the country 34 Notes Colaiaco Sheriff Davis told Young and other black leaders We are declaring martial law You had no permit for the earlier marches and no permits will be given for other marches SCLC had fomented the creative tension they needed 71 Following one march on his motel his mother in law had had a heart attack 72 Bookish says Branch to the extent that he routinely showed reporters an office adding machine with his precise tabulation of integrationists arrested at Monson s standing thus far at 239 66 This was a harmless threat suggests Branch as muriatic acid was a relatively harmless cleaning fluid that Brock had available 66 although in a high enough concentration it can damage human tissue and organs 30 Warren was at the time one of those working on the Grand Jury s report that at this point was expected to appoint a biracial committee comprising five whites and five blacks 73 As Pub L Tooltip Public Law United States 88 352 78 Stat 241 enacted July 2 1964 Simpson disagreed replying that developments over the last twenty four hours make me extremely hopeful that the trouble you anticipate will not materialize 86 Events such as these led to President Johnson s political advisor Lee C White informing him within the week that in St Augustine many businesses which had complied with the Act had now resegregated claiming that they were afraid 90 There were officially two classes of defendants in the case the eateries for not segregating and Manucy for not forcing them to do so 95 Simpson also rejected a case of contempt that had been brought against Bryant on the grounds that the State Governor could not be held responsible for the police s failure to uphold the law he also transferred all the pending cases regarding civil rights protesters into Federal jurisdiction 95 King had for example notes Bishop promised to devote himself to a summertime drive for Southern black voter registration there was to be a big People to People March in the state of Mississippi to honor Medgar Evers the Democratic National Convention was to be held in Atlantic City in August and King wanted to be there to make his presence felt the little town of Selma had been in the planning stage for more than a year and the people there were waiting for Martin Luther King 101 Because there was would be no time to excavate the site between its destruction and commencement of building the new hotel archaeologists booked into separate rooms while it was still open dug holes in the floor gathered their findings and then backfilled and moved onto other rooms 118 They made comparisons with Harlem in New York which highlighted its civil rights heritage tours to both black and white tourists 116 According to the author and the former deputy director for the National Archives and Records Administration Roger Bruns it was even picked up by Izvestia the influential Soviet newspaper 33 References edit King 1998 p 138 a b c Oates 1982 p 286 a b Colburn 1985 p 64 Colburn 1985 p 62 a b Dorrien 2018 p 365 NPS 2020a NPS 2020b Thompson 2014 p 34 a b c Oates 1982 p 285 a b c Webb 2010 p 169 a b c Bishop 1971 p 340 a b Snodgrass 2009 p 181 a b c Jackson 2007 p 190 a b c Chalmers 2003 p 45 Baldwin 2002 pp 90 91 a b c Garrow 1986 p 330 a b Warren 2008 p 156 Colburn 1985 pp 92 99 Chalmers 2003 pp 44 45 a b c d e f g h Colaiaco 1988 p 99 a b c Scott 2018 p 16 Cobb 2008 p 350 a b c Colburn 1985 p 91 a b c Colburn 1985 p 65 a b c Colburn 1985 p 67 Nolan 1992 p 77 a b Colaiaco 1988 p 100 a b Chalmers 2003 p 43 Shaw 2018 p 248 a b c Cruz 2012 p 254 a b c Belknap 1987 p 131 Kirk 2005 p 104 a b c d e Bruns 2006 p 102 a b Oates 1982 p 287 a b Pellegrino 2013 p 359 King s Speech Remembering Martin Luther King Jr s 1961 Stop In Tampa WUSF Public Media January 15 2013 Retrieved June 12 2021 Davis Ennis January 20 2020 Five Dr Martin Luther King Jr sites in Jacksonville The Jaxson Archived from the original on April 13 2019 Retrieved June 12 2021 How Dr MLK Jr s Legacy Still Lives On in Miami Today Culture Crusaders January 17 2020 Retrieved June 12 2021 a b Dorrien 2018 p 366 Oates 1982 p 289 a b c d e f g h Branch 1998 p 355 a b c d e f g h i j k l Lindquist 2018 p 76 a b c d e f g h i j k Branch 1998 p 339 a b c d e Warren 2008 p 76 a b c d e f g h Colburn 1985 p 92 a b c Garrow 1986 p 331 Bishop 1971 p 343 a b c d e Colaiaco 1988 p 103 Rieder 2008 p 271 a b c Branch 1998 p 340 a b c Oates 1982 p 290 Doyle 2001 pp 78 81 a b Chalmers 2003 p 44 Ellis 2013 p 156 a b c Webb 2010 p 170 a b Warren 2008 p 77 Loevy 1997 pp 29 31 Napolitano 2009 p 188 a b c d e f g h i j k l Garrow 1986 p 333 Joseph 2020 p 76 Warren 2008 pp 77 78 Garrow 1986 p 172 a b Colburn 1985 p 94 a b c d Bishop 1971 p 344 a b c Bishop 1971 p 346 a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Branch 1998 p 354 a b c Slate 2006 p 550 Epstein 1977 pp 73 199 206 Rieder 2008 p 235 Schneier 1999 p 125 Colaiaco 1988 p 101 a b c d e f g h i j Colburn 1985 p 99 a b c d e f g h Warren 2008 p 118 Colburn 1985 p 98 Haygood 2015 p 179 a b Colburn 1985 p 100 Oates 1982 p 291 a b Branch 1998 pp 354 355 Colburn 1985 p 148 a b Belknap 1987 p 133 a b Bruns 2006 p 103 Jackson 2007 p 19 Branch 1998 pp 387 378 a b Jackson 2007 pp 190 191 Oates 1982 p 293 a b c Garrow 1986 p 337 Colburn 1985 p 110 Oates 1982 p 292 a b Warren 2008 p 157 a b Branch 1998 p 392 a b Colburn 1985 p 111 Slate 2006 p 567 Ferris 2014 p 281 a b Branch 1998 p 396 a b c d e f Warren 2008 p 167 a b c Warren 2008 p 168 a b c Garrow 1986 p 344 a b c d e Colburn 1985 p 150 Colburn 1985 p 112 Bishop 1971 p 345 Bishop 1971 pp 345 346 Oates 1982 p 2926 Warren 2008 p 155 Oates 1982 p 297 Chalmers 2003 pp 43 45 Webb 2010 p 173 Baranowski et al 2019 p 19 Honey 2007 p 207 Warren 2008 p 185 a b c Warren 2008 p 184 a b Colburn 1985 p 151 Chalmers 2003 p 90 Warren 2008 pp 184 185 Webb 2010 p 172 Bush 2016 p 117 a b c d e Guzman 1999 p F1 a b Lewis 2003 Milanich 2002 p 53 Mcintyre amp Ross 2015 Gordon 2015 p 168 Mcintyre 2015 Warren 2008 p 119 Bibliography edit Baldwin L V 2002 The Legacy of Martin Luther King Jr The Boundaries of Law Politics and Religion Notre Dame Indiana University of Notre Dame Press ISBN 978 0 26803 354 5 Baranowski S Covert L P Gordon B M Jobs R I Noack C Rosenbaum A T Scott B C 2019 Tourism and Diplomacy Journal of Tourism History 1 28 OCLC 1106969762 Belknap M R 1987 Federal Law and Southern Order Racial Violence and Constitutional Conflict in the Post Brown South Athens Georgia University of Georgia Press ISBN 978 0 82031 735 9 Bishop J 1971 The days of Martin Luther King Jr New York G P Putnam ISBN 978 1 56619 412 9 Branch T 1998 Pillar of Fire 1963 65 America in the King Years Vol II New York Simon and Schuster ISBN 978 1 41655 870 5 Bruns 2006 Martin Luther King Jr Westport Connecticut Greenwood ISBN 978 0 31306 353 4 Bush G W 2016 White Sand Black Beach Civil Rights Public Space and Miami s Virginia Key Miami Florida University Press of Florida ISBN 978 0 81306 264 8 Chalmers D M 2003 Backfire How the Ku Klux Klan Helped the Civil Rights Movement New York Rowman amp Littlefield ISBN 978 0 74252 311 1 Cobb C E 2008 On the Road to Freedom A Guided Tour of the Civil Rights Trail Chapel Hill North Carolina Algonquin Books ISBN 978 1 61620 226 2 Colaiaco J A 1988 Martin Luther King Jr Apostle of Militant Nonviolence London Palgrave Macmillan ISBN 978 0 31208 843 9 Colburn D R 1985 Racial Change and Community Crisis St Augustine Florida 1877 1980 Contemporary American History New York Columbia University Press ISBN 978 0 81301 066 3 Cruz B C 2012 Swimming Not Allowed Teaching about Segregated Public Beaches and Pools The Social Studies 103 6 252 259 doi 10 1080 00377996 2011 631465 OCLC 60652539 S2CID 145505436 Dorrien G J 2018 Breaking White Supremacy Martin Luther King Jr and the Black Social Gospel New Haven Connecticut Yale University Press ISBN 978 0 30020 561 9 Doyle W 2001 An American Insurrection The Battle of Oxford Mississippi 1962 London Doubleday ISBN 978 0 38549 969 9 Ellis S 2013 Freedom s Pragmatist Lyndon Johnson and Civil Rights Gainesville Florida University Press of Florida ISBN 978 0 81304 456 9 Epstein D J 1977 Sinful Tunes and Spirituals Black Folk Music to the Civil War Chicago University of Illinois Press ISBN 978 0 25207 150 8 Ferris M C 2014 The Edible South The Power of Food and the Making of an American Region Chapel Hill North Carolina University of North Carolina Press ISBN 978 1 46961 768 8 Garrow D J 1986 Bearing the Cross Martin Luther King Jr and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference MLK An American Legacy Vol II New York Quill ISBN 978 1 50401 152 5 Gordon E B 2015 Walking Saint Augustine Gainesville Florida University of Florida ISBN 978 0 81306 083 5 Guzman R February 24 1999 A Civil Rights Relic In St Augustine Faces Demolition Locals Are on Their Own in Bid To Save the Monson Lodge Site of 64 Swim In Protest Wall Street Journal pp Florida Section F1 Haygood W 2015 Showdown Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court Nomination that Changed America New York Alfred A Knopf ISBN 978 0 3079 4737 6 Honey M K 2007 Going Down Jericho Road The Memphis Strike Martin Luther King s Last Campaign New York W W Norton ISBN 978 0 39307 832 9 Jackson T F 2007 From Civil Rights to Human Rights Martin Luther King Jr and the Struggle for Economic Justice Philadelphia University of Pennsylvania Press ISBN 978 0 81220 000 3 Joseph P E 2020 The Sword and the Shield The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr New York Hachette ISBN 978 1 54161 785 8 King M L 1998 The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr New York Hachette ISBN 978 0 75952 037 0 Kirk J A 2005 Martin Luther King Jr London Routledge pp Profiles in Power ISBN 978 1 31787 650 2 Lewis K March 18 2003 Demolition begins on Monson Inn St Augustine Record Archived from the original on May 30 2020 Retrieved May 30 2020 Lindquist J 2018 Forcing Change Cocoa Florida Florida Historical Society Press ISBN 978 1 88610 498 3 Loevy R D 1997 Introduction In Loevy R D ed The Civil Rights Act of 1964 The Passage of the Law That Ended Racial Segregation New York SUNY Press pp 1 46 ISBN 978 0 79143 361 4 Mcintyre M June 15 2015 St Augustine To Remember Largest Mass Arrest Of Rabbis In US History WJCT Archived from the original on May 30 2020 Retrieved May 30 2015 Mcintyre M Ross M July 14 2015 St Augustine Nonprofit Preserves City s Civil Rights History WJCT Archived from the original on May 30 2020 Retrieved May 30 2015 Milanich J T 2002 Motel of the Mysteries Archaeology 55 50 53 OCLC 1118913 Napolitano A P 2009 Dred Scott s Revenge A Legal History of Race and Freedom in America Nashville Thomas Nelson ISBN 978 1 41857 557 1 Nolan D 1992 St Augustine to Astor In McCarthyK M ed The Book Lover s Guide to Florida Sarasota Florida Pineapple Press p 62132 ISBN 978 1 56164 021 8 NPS 2020a Florida St Augustine Town Plan Historic District nps gov National Park Service Archived from the original on April 30 2015 Retrieved May 27 2015 NPS 2020b Not So Fast Jamestown St Augustine Was Here First NPR org Archived from the original on November 5 2019 Retrieved November 5 2019 Oates S B 1982 Let the Trumpet Sound A Life of Martin Luther King Jr New York Mentor ISBN 978 0 86241 837 3 Pellegrino A M 2013 Historical Examination of the Segregated School Experience The History Teacher 46 355 337 OCLC 1056478359 Rieder J 2008 The Word of the Lord Is Upon Me the righteous performance of Martin Luther King Jr Cambridge Massachusetts Harvard University Press ISBN 978 0 67404 273 5 Schneier M 1999 Shared Dreams Martin Luther King Jr and the Jewish Community Woodstock Vermont Jewish Lights Publishing ISBN 978 1 58023 273 9 Scott B C 2018 Revolution at the Hotel Panama and Luxury Travel in the Age of Decolonisation Journal of Tourism History 1 19 OCLC 1106969762 Shaw R E 2018 A Final Push for National Legislation The Chicago Freedom Movement In HubbardM ed Illinois History A Reader Champaign Illinois University of Illinois Press pp 235 263 ISBN 978 0 25208 364 8 Slate C S 2006 Florida Room Battle for St Augustine 1964 Public Record and Personal Recollection The Florida Historical Quarterly 84 541 568 OCLC 439912250 Snodgrass M E 2009 Civil Disobedience A Z entries New York Sharpe Reference ISBN 978 0 76568 127 0 Thompson L 2014 Exploring The Territories of the United States New York Britannica Digital Learning p 34 ISBN 978 1 62513 185 0 Warren D R 2008 If It Takes All Summer Martin Luther King the KKK and States Rights in St Augustine 1964 Tuscaloosa University of Alabama Press ISBN 978 0 81731 599 3 Webb C 2010 Rabble Rousers The American Far Right in the Civil Rights Era Athens Georgia University of Georgia Press ISBN 978 0 82034 229 0 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title 1964 Monson Motor Lodge protests amp oldid 1190311609, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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