The Civil Rights Movement in the United States during the twentieth century saw a great deal of change, upheaval, and violence. At the national level, Black leaders like Andrew Young, Ralph Abernathy, and Martin Luther King Jr. worked alongside local grassroots activists across the nation to bring about an end to segregation, discrimination, and institutionalized racism, relying often on non-violent civil disobedience. Frequently, Black civil rights advocates were met with violence by white supremacists and segregationists wherever they planned and carried out demonstrations. In the 1960s, the national Civil Rights Movement and its fight against white supremacy arrived in the nation’s Oldest City.
St. Augustine, as civil rights leaders saw it, was a typical strongly segregationist small southern town that relied on tourism dollars to survive. The city’s upcoming quadricentennial celebrations in 1965 and the planning leading up to them provided a perfect means to draw attention to segregation in the city and the South as a whole, displaying the violence that demonstrators were met with and hopefully spurring the passage of the national Civil Rights Act. St. Augustine ultimately proved pivotal in the greater struggle for Black Freedom in the 1960s and specifically in the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act for exactly this reason.
Local leader Dr. Robert Hayling, a dentist and member of the NAACP, proved critical in bringing national attention to St. Augustine. With the upcoming 400th anniversary festivities, Hayling and other local civil rights advocates reached out to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to begin planning demonstrations in Spring of 1964. In the words of Martin Luther King Jr., St. Augustine served as a “testing ground” to see if southern states could change their white supremacist laws. Perhaps the most famous of these demonstrations centered around the Monson Motor Lodge, owned by James Brock. (Today, the bayfront Hilton occupies the lot where the Monson was.). The hotel and its lunch counter were segregated, as most businesses in town were at the time. Upon arriving in St. Augustine and joining in with the demonstrations, Martin Luther King Jr. attempted to eat lunch at the Monson’s restaurant, where owner James Brock refused to serve him and promptly had him arrested.
While in the St. Johns County Jail, King wrote to Israel Dresner, a key Reform rabbi, urging him to bring other rabbis to St. Augustine to participate in the demonstrations. Seventeen rabbis ultimately came to St. Augustine and joined in the protests, and all were arrested on June 18, 1964. Fifteen were praying in an integrated group in front of the Monson Motor Lodge. Two more were seated in an integrated group at the Chimes Restaurant. This was the largest mass arrest of rabbis in American history.
Simultaneously, as the rabbis were praying and being arrested, a group of both Black and White protestors who were staying at the hotel jumped into the Monson’s swimming pool. This action resulted in one of the most famous photographs in all of American history: Monson owner James Brock pouring hydrochloric acid into the pool while the group of integrated individuals was still in the water.
As the demonstrators were trying to exit the water, a fully-clothed policeman jumped into the pool to arrest them. This photo too made international news.
While in the St. Johns County Jail, like King, the incarcerated rabbis also wrote a letter, explaining their motives for coming to St. Augustine and joining in the demonstrations. The letter can be read in its entirety here. Of particular note, they stated that
“We came as Jews who remember the millions of faceless people who stood quietly, watching the smoke rise from Hitler’s crematoria. We came because we know that, second only to silence, the greatest danger to man is loss of faith in man’s capacity to act.”
To honor those rabbis who came to the Oldest City and participated in the civil rights demonstrations, the St. Augustine Jewish Historical Society will be hosting their annual commemoration of the arrest of the largest mass arrest of rabbis on Thursday, June 18 at 12:00PM at the St. Johns County Jail Annex.
Written by: Robert Covert, Collections Manager and Editor-in-Chief
Sources consulted:
Hayling, Robert B. Biographical File, Biographical File Collection, St. Augustine Historical Society Research Library.
Monson- Hotels, Motels, Boarding Houses, and Bed & Breakfasts, Vertical File Collection, St. Augustine Historical Society Research Library.
https://rac.org/why-we-went-joint-letter-rabbis-arrested-st-augustine
Branch, T. Pillar of Fire: 1963-65: America in the King Years. Vol. II. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1998.
Colburn, D. R. Racial Change and Community Crisis: St. Augustine, Florida, 1877-1980. New York: Columbia University Press, 1985.
Warren, D. R. If It Takes All Summer: Martin Luther King, the KKK, and States’ Rights in St. Augustine, 1964. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2008.