St. Augustine movement
| St. Augustine movement | |||
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| Part of the Civil Rights Movement | |||
Martin Luther King, Jr. being denied entry to the "whites-only" Monson Motor Lodge restaurant by owner James "Jimmy" Brock
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| Date | 1963–1964 (2 years) | ||
| Location | St. Augustine, Florida | ||
| Result |
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| Parties to the civil conflict | |||
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| Lead figures | |||
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NYC members
SCLC members
State of Florida
St. Johns County
City of St. Augustine
Business
ACHC member
NSRP member
The St. Augustine movement was part of the wider Civil Rights Movement in 1963–1964. It was a major event in St. Augustine's long history and had a role in the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Despite the 1954 Supreme Court act in Brown v. Board of Education, which ruled that the "separate but equal" legal status of public schools made those schools inherently unequal, St. Augustine still had only six black children admitted into white schools. The homes of two of the families of these children were burned by local segregationists, while other families were forced to move out of the county because the parents were fired from their jobs.
Dr. Robert Hayling is generally considered the "father" of the St. Augustine movement. A Tallahassee native originally, Hayling served as an Air Force officer, and then became the first black dentist in Florida to be elected to the American Dental Association. He set up business in St. Augustine in 1960 and joined the local National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The organization led a high-profile protest of the segregated celebration of the city's 400th anniversary in March 1963. While the campaign was successful at convincing Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson to speak before an interracial audience in St. Augustine, it had no effect on the overall Jim Crow laws. The NAACP campaign lacked a direct action component and Hayling believed that this was a major failing. Hayling founded an NAACP Youth Council that engaged in nonviolent direct action, including wade-ins at the local segregated swimming pools.
A sit-in protest at the local Woolworth's lunch counter ended in the arrest and imprisonment of 16 young black protesters and seven juveniles. Four of the children, two of whom were 16-year-old girls, were sent to "reform" school and retained for six months. These four children were JoeAnn Anderson, Audrey Nell Edwards, Willie Carl Singleton, and Samuel White, and they came to be known as "the St. Augustine Four". Their case was publicized as an egregious injustice by Jackie Robinson, the NAACP, the Pittsburgh Courier, and others. Finally, a special action of the governor and cabinet of Florida freed them in January 1964.
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