Clashes on King Street: The Role of State Officials in the 1964 St. Augustine Racial Crisis
By
Kathryn Murphy Donohue
Senior Honors Thesis History Department
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill April 1, 2015
Approved:
____________________________ W. Fitzhugh Brundage, Thesis Advisor
Acknowledgements
I am thankful for everyone for their support and assistance throughout this project. Foremost, I am thankful for my thesis adviser, Dr. W. Fitzhugh Brundage for agreeing to be my adviser throughout this process and helping me articulate my ideas into words. Thank you also to Professor Kathleen Duval for being such an amazing teacher and for making a daunting process that much easier. Thank you to Dr. Kenneth Janken for reading my thesis and taking the time to assist in its defense.
This project was supported by a Boyatt Award in History supported by the Michael L. and Matthew L. Boyatt Fund and administered by the Department of History.
Table of Contents
Timeline of 1963-1964………...….3
Introduction………..6
A Recipe for Disaster: St. Augustine in 1963………13
Doing Their Least: Official Responses to St. Augustine in 1964………37
Supporting Their Own: The Differing Treatment of White Segregationists and Civil Rights Demonstrators in St. Augustine……….…56
Conclusion……….71
Timeline
January 8, 1963 President John F. Kennedy appoints the members of the St. Augustine Quadricentennial Commission, none of whom are black.
February 23, 1963 The NAACP requests Vice President Johnson not to visit St. Augustine in light of continued segregation in the city.
March 7, 1963 Vice President Johnson writes to the local NAACP and ensures them he will not participate in any segregated events.
March 11, 1963 Vice President Johnson visits St. Augustine and swears in the all-white members of the Quadricentennial Commission.
March 12, 1963 Informal meeting between local NAACP representatives and City Manager Charles Barrier.
June 3, 1963 Dr. Joseph Shelley is elected Mayor of St. Augustine.
June 20, 1963 St. Augustine City Commission Meeting with the NAACP, only two city commissioners attend.
June 23, 1963 Local black citizens begin picketing segregated lunch counters.
July 18, 1963 “St. Augustine Four” are arrested while picked the Woolworth’s lunch counter.
September 2, 1963 First demonstrations at Constitution Plaza in downtown St. Augustine. Police break up the demonstration using cattle prods.
September 18, 1963 Robert Hayling and three others are beaten at a Ku Klux Klan rally. October 22, 1963 Molotov cocktails are thrown into the homes of black families whose
children attended integrated schools.
October 24, 1963 William Kinard, a white man, is shot driving through Lincolnville late at night.
November 5, 1963 St. Johns County Grand Jury indicts five men in the death of William Kinard.
December 16, 1963 St. Johns County Grand Jury presents its findings on the racial situation in St. Augustine. The grand jury blamed militant black leaders and the Ku Klux Klan.
Late December, 1963 Robert Hayling leaves the NAACP; Correctional Institutions Board orders release of the St. Augustine Four.
January 14, 1964 St. Augustine Four officially released.
March 6, 1964 Robert Hayling drives to Orlando to meet with representatives of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
March 29, 1964 Mary Parkman Peabody, mother of Governor Endicott Peabody, arrives in St. Augustine on Easter Sunday.
March 30, 1964 Peabody and her companions are arrested at the Ponce de Leon Motor Lodge.
April 2, 1964 Mary Peabody returns to Massachusetts.
April 13, 1964 Mary Peabody appears on The Today Show and criticizes St. Augustine. April 14, 1964 St. Augustine City Commission votes to demand a rebuttal to Peabody’s
appearance on The Today Show.
April 23, 1964 Black demonstrators renew protests in St. Augustine.
May 11, 1964 Governor Bryant responds to requests for assistance from St. Augustine Sheriff L.O. Davis; he calls it a local matter.
May 18, 1964 Martin Luther King, Jr. visits St. Augustine and describes it as a “small Birmingham.”
May 19, 1964 King officially commits the SCLC to assist in St. Augustine.
May 20, 1964 Mayor Shelley appears on The Today Show to rebut the claims of Mary Peabody.
May 25, 1964 Andrew Young and Harry Boyte meet with Mayor Shelley to discuss segregation in St. Augustine.
June 1, 1964 St. Augustine City Commission passes an emergency ordinance
establishing a curfew for minors and banning cars from downtown after dark.
June 3, 1964 SCLC challenges night curfew in federal court. Judge Bryan Simpson asks for a moratorium on demonstrations while he rules on the case.
June 5, 1964 Martin Luther King, Jr. expresses hope that the city will work with demonstrators during the moratorium.
June 8, 1964 Governor Farris Bryant appoints Dan Warren as his special representative in St. Augustine.
June 9, 1964 Judge Simpson overrules the night curfew and night marches resume. White counterdemonstrations and violence increase.
June 10, 1964 Governor Bryant sends in state troopers to assist in policing violence in St. Augustine.
June 16, 1964 Bryant issues his first executive order creating a special state police force in St. Augustine.
June 18, 1964 Grand jury presents its findings and asks for a thirty day “cooling off” period before establishing a biracial committee.
June 19, 1964 Civil rights demonstrators reject the grand jury presentment’s request for a thirty day moratorium on marches.
June 20, 1964 Bryant issues his second executive order banning nighttime
demonstrations in direct violation of Judge Simpson’s previous ruling. June 24, 1964 White counterdemonstrators march through St. Augustine’s black
neighborhood.
Late June, 1964 Civil rights demonstrators begin daily beach wade-ins along with their nightly marches.
June 26, 1964 Judge Simpson hears the state’s justification for banning night marches. June 30, 1964 Governor Bryant announces he has set up a temporary biracial committee.
The committee never meets.
July 2, 1964 1964 Civil Rights Act is signed into law.
July 4, 1964 150 robed Klansmen march through St. Augustine July 7, 1964 Monson Motor Lodge integrates.
July 24, 1964 Monson Motor Lodge firebombed.
July 25, 1964 J.B. Stoner arrested in connection with cross burning on the land of the City Baking Co; Connie Lynch returns to St. Augustine.
August 5, 1964 Grand jury attempts to establish biracial commission.
Introduction
Birmingham, Selma, Little Rock, Tuscaloosa, and Greensboro: these are the places people think of as the major battlegrounds of the Civil Rights Movement. Few people living beyond the ninety miles of coast from Jacksonville to Daytona Beach think of St. Augustine as a site of a major struggle in the campaign for black rights. Yet in 1964, as the United States Congress debated the historic Civil Rights Act, a clash of wills surfaced in St. Augustine. The Ku Klux Klan, which in Florida had been disorganized and fractured, mobilized forces by the hundreds to ensure the continuation of segregation in America’s oldest city. And Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference arrived to force state and local officials to negotiate and recognize the struggle of black St. Augustinians. The crisis persisted throughout the hot Florida summer requiring the governor to mobilize a special state police force to keep the peace. Why then has St. Augustine seemingly become a footnote in history?
The answer to this question in part is that St. Augustine was indeed a pitched struggle, but it had no clear victor. The 1964 Civil Rights Act passed in July, when hostilities in the city were at their worst. With the bill, desegregation became federal law and federal Judge Bryan Simpson ensured that it was eventually enforced. Campaigning in St. Augustine was tiring and in June 1964, Martin Luther King, Jr. expressed to state attorney Dan Warren that he needed a way out of St. Augustine with honor.1 As if granting this request, Florida Governor Farris Bryant announced that he had formed a biracial commission to investigate the civil rights disputes in St. Augustine. King and his legion of marchers quietly left St. Augustine, not even waiting to see if
1 Dan R. Warren, If It Takes All Summer: Martin Luther King, the KKK, and States’ Rights in St. Augustine, 1964
Bryant followed through on his promise. Governor Bryant never appointed the commission and privately assured St. Augustine Mayor Joseph Shelley that he never would.2
Eventually, St. Augustine fully desegregated its public facilities— a victory for the civil rights demonstrators. However, the segregationists claimed victory in St. Augustine as well. They saw Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) as invaders invited by a handful of disgruntled local blacks to tarnish their city. Although
segregationists were ultimately unsuccessful in stopping desegregation in the city, they did manage to rid their city of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the SCLC. Local officials stymied the SCLC and tacitly supported the white counterdemonstrators. After the SCLC left St. Augustine, segregationists began attacking desegregated businesses in an attempt to forcibly stop the effects of the Civil Rights Act.
The ambiguous ending to the crisis is one of the reasons studying it is important. Civil rights demonstrators in St. Augustine were neither able to negotiate with local officials to come a solution nor able to convince officials in Washington that the conflict warranted federal
intervention.3 Local officials in St. Augustine walked a fine line that allowed them to avoid federal intervention. They did not try to stop segregationist violence against the civil rights marchers but they also did not actively attack the marchers as officials in Birmingham did. With federal officials unwilling to intervene and local officials unwilling to cooperate, state officials were forced to take an active role in seeking solutions to the crisis in St. Augustine.
Florida officials did not actively resist desegregation like Bull Connor in Birmingham or Orval Faubus in Little Rock. Instead, state officials diverged in their motivations and methods.
2 David R. Colburn, Racial Change and Community Crisis: St. Augustine, Florida, 1877-1980 (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1985), 11.
For his part, Governor Bryant did the least he could do by intervening in the St. Augustine crisis only after ignoring multiple requests for help and facing pressure from media attention. Governor Bryant aligned himself with local officials in St. Augustine and saw the civil rights
demonstrators as agitators. Bryant did, however, appoint state attorney Dan Warren as his special representative in St. Augustine, not realizing that Warren would take a completely different stand. In contrast to Bryant, Warren worked tirelessly with civil rights demonstrators and local officials to stop segregationist violence and find solutions in St. Augustine. These men, along with State Attorney General James Kynes, were integral to the outcome of the crisis in St. Augustine.
Historians of the Civil Rights Movement focus primarily on the local and federal levels, seldom noting the role of state officials in civil rights disputes unless they actively resisted integration efforts. But, if St. Augustine in 1964 teaches us anything, it is that state officials can completely change the trajectory of a conflict. Early in June 1964, Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote to federal officials, claiming that local police would not protect integrationists from attacks by white counterdemonstrators.4 King surely hoped that the president would federalize the National Guard in Florida and take over policing St. Augustine. Governor Bryant unintentionally ensured that the crisis would continue in St. Augustine for the rest of the summer by issuing an executive order appointing a special police force to St. Augustine. Instead of swift federal intervention and a crackdown on segregationist violence, the introduction of the state police resulted in marginal protection for the civil rights marchers but also prolonged hostilities.
This thesis argues that state government officials in Florida played essential roles in the St. Augustine racial crisis. While Governor Farris Bryant’s willful inaction served to exacerbate
tensions and violence, Dan Warren’s dedicated efforts helped resolve it. No matter their side, Warren, Governor Bryant, and other state officials played integral roles in the crisis that hold lessons in the benefits and drawbacks of state intervention in local crises. While Governor Bryant showed “moderation” in his response to the racial crisis in comparison to other southern governors, that moderation still entailed tacit support of white extremists. Bryant only showed intolerance to white extremism when it threatened traditional white authority. Bryant, like local St. Augustine officials, was not inherently in conflict with the Klan there.
In Racial Change and Community Crisis, David Colburn examines the motivations and actions of the different factions that existed in St. Augustine. Colburn focuses on the role of local civil rights leader Robert Hayling, arguing that he may have done more harm than good for racial equality in St. Augustine. As to the involvement of the SCLC in St. Augustine, Colburn charges that while the prominence of their national movement brought a needed sense of urgency to St. Augustine, the SCLC hurt local demonstrators in the end. While Colburn does not accuse the SCLC of using St. Augustine to ensure the passage of the Civil Rights Act, he does indicate that the SCLC put local concerns in St. Augustine behind the organization’s national priorities.5 Colburn also argues that local white leaders were solely interested in maintaining the status quo in St. Augustine. He emphasizes the approval the Klan and the Ancient City Gun Club had from local leaders like Sheriff L.O. Davis. Colburn acknowledges that Governor Bryant played a role in the crisis; he points to Bryant’s disapproval of civil disobedience and indifference to reaching a negotiated settlement in the city. Colburn also acknowledges the contribution of the state police that Bryant appointed to curbing the violence in the city.6 Colburn’s assessment of Bryant’s contributions, however, does not take into account the pressures nationally that forced the
governor to act. Most importantly, Colburn does not adequately acknowledge the contributions of Dan Warren throughout the racial crisis.
Robert Hartley’s A Long Hot Summer: The St. Augustine Racial Disorders of 1964 and Edward Kallal, Jr.’s St. Augustine and the Ku Klux Klan: 1963 and 1964 focus on the local white power structure. Hartley argues that the Klan and the Ancient City Gun Club silenced the
business community with their violence and threats.7 Kallal focuses on the Klan’s role in St. Augustine and on the inherently American nature of the organization. Kallal calls the Klan “genetically American” and explores the factors, like socio-economic background, that
traditionally led people to join the Ku Klux Klan. He argues that in St. Augustine locals, whether they were members of the Klan or merely sympathizers, were motivated by their racism and ideology to usurp the power traditionally delegated to elites.8
If It Takes All Summer, Dan Warren’s 2008 memoir, fills some of the gap left by the lack
of focus on state actors in the historiography. While Warren does make excuses and glorifies his position in St. Augustine on occasion, other primary materials, especially the official papers of Governor Bryant, support his claims. Indeed, almost alone among his contemporaries in
Tallahassee, Warren was honestly dedicated to finding solutions in St Augustine. If It Takes All Summer provides details into conversations Warren had with local authorities, the civil rights
demonstrators, and the segregationist counterdemonstrators.
The first chapter of this thesis analyzes the deteriorating situation in St. Augustine in 1963. In 1963, local blacks held sit-ins for the integration of private businesses. These sit-ins
7 Robert Hartley, “A Long, Hot Summer: The St. Augustine Racial Disorders of 1964,” In St. Augustine, Florida, 1963-1964: Mass Protest and Racial Violence, edited by David Garrow (Brooklyn, NY: Carlson Publishing Inc., 1989), 73-76.
eventually aroused violent backlash from the Klan in surrounding parts of Florida. This chapter focuses on the failures of local leadership that precipitated the 1964 conflict and pinpoints when state actors played a role in the escalating tensions during the summer of 1963. The second chapter details official responses to the crisis in St. Augustine, with an emphasis on those of state actors. This chapter showcases the lengths to which Warren went to solve the crisis in
comparison to the actions of Governor Bryant. The third chapter stresses the differing treatment by state and local officials of the Klan and the almost wholly peaceful civil rights demonstrators. Whites accused the SCLC of fabricating tensions and misrepresenting the city to the world. Simultaneously, state and local officials protected the rights of Klansmen despite their attacks on peaceful protestors. This chapter also highlights shared prejudices held by local officials and Governor Bryant that colored their actions during the crisis and impeded efforts to negotiate with the civil rights marchers.
The intricacies of the 1964 St. Augustine racial crisis are as fascinating as they are overlooked, from Warren’s efforts to use an adulterous affair to combat Ku Klux Klan violence to a biracial commission that never met. State officials molded the course of the civil rights conflict in St. Augustine. Governor Bryant issued key executive orders which resulted in furor from demonstrators on both sides. Dan Warren moved from Daytona Beach to St. Augustine for the duration of the summer of 1964 in order to devote his full attention to aiding the civil rights demonstrators and local officials in coming to a solution to the crisis. The extent of Dan
A Recipe for Disaster: St. Augustine in 1963
“Please sign this statement in order to have your child released to you.” Each of the parents of the four children in question, the so-called St. Augustine Four, looked at the release in shock. St. Johns County Judge Charles Mathis sought to compel them to prohibit their sons and daughters from picketing or participating in any racial demonstrations until they turned 21. He also wanted to enforce a curfew of 8:30 at night on the four youths. The stunned parents did not understand why their children should abide such restrictions; they possessed a constitutional right to protest and a judge could not deprive them of it. The parents refused to sign the statement. Mathis responded by placing the four teens in the county jail pending trial for
delinquency and trespassing. Their arrest had occurred hours earlier while picketing a segregated St. Augustine lunch counter on July 22, 1963. Meanwhile, because Florida lacked desegregated juvenile detention centers, the teens were sent to the county jail with the general population of prisoners and without any provisions for their schooling. From July to December their parents and lawyers for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) worked to obtain their release. Judge Mathis refused to release them as long as their parents did not sign the waiver. They soon realized that only a long battle would overturn this judge’s ruling.9
Mathis’s decision in July 1963 took place amid rising social and racial unrest in St. Augustine. The four-hundred year anniversary of the founding of St. Augustine, the oldest city in the United States, approached. Preparations for the anniversary began at the national level with a quadricentennial commission that included presidential and merit appointees. The commission, however, included no black representatives. Subsequent decisions by the committee and the local 9 Lynward Murray to Honorable Adam Clayton Powell, September 7, 1963, Folder 7, Box C24, National
government of St. Augustine further marginalized the black community in the planned festivities. As a result, black leaders appealed to Vice President Lyndon Johnson for his help in securing the appointment of black representatives to the committee.10 For black leaders like NAACP Youth leader Robert Hayling, the exclusion of blacks from the planned anniversary festivities
highlighted the pervasive racial inequality in St. Augustine.
Hayling had little cause for optimism. In St. Augustine, white officials showed little interest in altering city policy on integration, which pledged but did not enforce the
desegregation of city-owned facilities. Representatives of the NAACP were quick to point out that many purportedly integrated facilities remained unused by black citizens who feared violence from whites in the community.11 Only, Vice President Johnson’s intervention and refusal to participate in any segregated celebrations prompted any concessions from local whites. Johnson’s liaison in St. Augustine, George Reedy, arranged a meeting between city officials and NAACP representatives the morning after the Vice President attended a public dinner in St. Augustine.12 The meeting, however, did not unfold as planned.
Rather than meeting with city officials to discuss changes to city policy, Hayling and others met with City Manager Charles Barrier and his secretary. At the beginning of the meeting, Barrier made it clear that he did not have authority to agree to any of the demands of NAACP leaders. Barrier came prepared to hear the complaints of the city’s black community, but not to offer solutions or concessions. Barrier recorded the meeting and his secretary typed a transcript for the city council to consider at their next meeting. Hayling and the other African Americans present requested a formal meeting with the city council but Barrier denied the request.
10 Fannie Fullerwood to Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, February 23, 1963, Folder 7, Box C24, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People records, 1842-1999. Library of Congress, Washington D.C. 11 Hartley, A Long Hot Summer, 13.
According to Barrier, citizens could bring up topics for discussion at the end of every city council meeting and consequently a special meeting with black activists was unnecessary. He repeatedly stated that he only attended the meeting because US Senator George Smathers’ office had requested him to do so.13 To make matters worse, after setting up another meeting in June, Barrier admitted on television that meeting with black leaders allowed the “negroes to blow off steam,” implying that the meeting had been political theater and the city did not plan on acting on their concerns.14 Already in 1963, the racial tensions that would upend St. Augustine in 1964 were conspicuous and worsening.
This chapter examines the groups that played the leading roles in the racial crisis in St. Augustine in 1964. Throughout 1963 each group had opportunities to avoid the crisis that developed in 1964. These groups are white segregationists, civil rights demonstrators, state officials, and federal officials. Even in 1963, the role that state officials did and could play in St. Augustine was apparent. From Governor Bryant ignoring multiple requests for assistance to Dan Warren trying to assist in St. Augustine even when he lacked clear authority to do so, 1963 showed how important state officials would be in 1964. This chapter details the history of each group in Florida and St. Augustine and then examines the different roles these groups played in the events of 1963.
The Parties in St. Augustine
White Segregationists
13 Informal Conference Between City Manager Charles F. Barrier and Representatives of Local Branch of NAACP, March 1963, Folder 7, Box C24, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People records, 1842-1999, Library of Congress, Washington D.C.
From the outset of difficulties, beginning with sit-ins during 1963, a large number of local whites opposed the efforts to desegregate St. Augustine. Local officials such as Mayor Joseph Shelley and Sheriff L.O. Davis openly aligned themselves with the segregationists. They also included popular locals, particularly Halstead “Hoss” Manucy who ran the Ancient City Gun Club. In addition to local white segregationists, Ku Klux Klansmen from Mississippi, Georgia, and north Florida descended upon St. Augustine beginning in 1963 and stayed there throughout 1964. In the eyes of the news media and state officials, Hoss Manucy became the de facto spokesman for segregationists in St. Augustine.
The Ku Klux Klan is an organization whose influence and actions mark the course of civil rights in the United States. The Klan reached its peak in the 1920s, then collapsed before being revived in 1960s in response to the civil rights movement. Although the Ku Klux Klan of the 1960s never reached the size or possessed the influence of the Klan of the 1920s, it
nonetheless significantly shaped race relations and racial politics in the South. The Klan
exhibited extreme anti-civil rights, anti-black sentiment throughout the struggle for equal rights. In those states whose governments resisted calls for equal rights, the Klan acted an extension of those policies. In others, where the government did not actively resist civil rights legislation, the Ku Klux Klan acted as an alternative for those citizens opposed to their states’ passive
acceptance of desegregation.15 While the state government of Florida by no means supported racial integration, it did not actively resist desegregation like other southern state governments. Florida Governor Farris Bryant and his predecessor Leroy Collins did not stand in the way of federal desegregation efforts. In fact, despite his apparent opposition to desegregation, Collins established a committee to investigate the state of civil rights in Florida.16 The choice of
15Klanwatch Project, Ku Klux Klan: A History of Racism and Violence (Montgomery: Southern Poverty Law Center, 2011), 17.
Florida’s leaders to not participate in active resistance to desegregation was a catalyst for the Klan’s successful organizing in Florida in the 1960s.
The Klan during the 1960s could look to the success of its predecessor during the 1920s for inspiration. Beginning in Jacksonville, the Klan in Florida had spread southward. Early 20th century Klansmen focused not only on ensuring the continuation of Jim Crow but also on encouraging temperance, anti-communism, and “traditional” family values.17 Roman Catholics and Jews, along with African Americans emerged as targets beginning in the 1920s as well.18 The mid-century Klan would share some of these prejudices but it differed, especially, in at least one important regard from its predecessor. The post-WWII Klan was fragmented and
characterized by competing local or regional organizations unaffiliated with a larger national structure. Factions in Florida included the Florida Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, the National Knights of the KKK, the U.S. Klans, Knights of the KKK, and others.19 These factions competed with one another to gain members across the state from Jacksonville to Tampa. Bill Hendrix, an on-and-off Klansmen and 1954 gubernatorial candidate, described the KKK in Florida as “a conglomeration of different organizations, breaking up, going together, and not getting along.” However disjointed, these groups were united in their opposition to the 1954 Brown decision and to integration in any fashion. Without renouncing their traditional violence, these factions emulated the civic work carried out by the Klan of the 1920s. They worked locally to gain support through church appearances and other activities.20 They also focused on combating the rhetoric of integrationists. Seemingly recognizing the large Catholic population in Florida,
17 David Chalmers, Hooded Americanism: The History of Ku Klux Klan (Durham: Duke University Press, 1987), 226.
18 Ibid, 377.
19 Michael Newton, The Invisible Empire: The Ku Klux Klan in Florida (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2001), 150.
Hendrix’s Southern Knights of the KKK opened membership up to Catholics in 1957 and focused exclusively on defending white racial privilege and segregation.21
The Klan’s response to civil rights activism hardened in response to the sit-in movement in 1960. Disparate Klansmen also united behind their shared cause. In 1961 the Florida Knights of the KKK and the United KKK merged into the United Florida KKK or UFKKK. Robert E. Lee klavern no.519, the local Klan in St. Augustine, identified as part of the UFKKK.22 Jacksonville emerged as a hotbed of Klan activity, with at least six different klaverns in the city.23 In August 1960, three thousand Klansmen from Jacksonville and surrounding parts of Florida and Georgia marched through the city in opposition to the sit-in movement. The marchers carried clubs and ax handles. With little police presence they set upon black
demonstrators and beat them. Twenty-four Klansmen and sixty black demonstrators faced arrest but the white men only paid fines while the black activists spent 90 days in jail. Even veteran Klansman Bill Hendrix noticed the shift in Florida’s Klan toward violence. Resigning from the KKK in late 1960, Hendrix declared that integration was inevitable and the Klan would turn to lawlessness in its efforts to combat it.24
St. Augustine Klansmen benefitted from their closeness to Jacksonville. In Jacksonville, many locals welcomed the Klan and Klan membership drives were hugely successful. Klansmen from St. Augustine frequently attended these events.25 St. Augustine’s white community, the crisis of 1964 showed, shared a similar partiality toward the Klan and its endeavors. Indeed, St. Augustine tended toward ultraconservatism. The city boasted a thriving and influential John
21 Ibid, 152. 22 Ibid, 160.
Birch Society which persuaded many white citizens that communists fomented the
demonstrations in town.26 Mayor Shelley insisted that “there is more awareness of communism in this county [St. Johns] than the rest of Florida.”27 The city, steeped in tradition, did not react well to change.
Augmenting the Klan was the Ancient City Gun Club.28 Hoss Manucy founded and ran the Ancient City Gun Club, a de facto security service which patrolled the lands of local
businesses. Much of the surrounding area was swamp or farmland that was owned by individuals and businesses. In exchange for patrolling this land, the owners allowed the members of the Gun Club to hunt on their land for free.
Manucy’s family had deep roots in St. Augustine, having moved there sometime before 1734.29 Manucy took great pride in his city and in protecting the lands of local businessmen. Born in 1919, Manucy had “curly sideburns, [wore a] black cowboy hat, and [an] impressive brawny girth.” Manucy lacked extensive formal education and was illiterate.30 He lived at the end of a dead-end road about five miles north of St. Augustine, his yard full of his fourteen children and many dogs. Local authorities convicted Manucy of making moonshine in 1956 and he was released in the early 1960s.31 That an illiterate felon acted as the spokesman for the anti-integration faction in the 1964 crisis reflects the breakdown in responsibility in the local
government that began in 1963 and worsened in 1964. Manucy acted with conviction, something one might not say of Mayor Shelley or the City Commissioners who ignored the NAACP’s 26 Warren, If It Takes All Summer, 17-18.
27 Ibid, 163.
28 In some sources the Ancient City Gun Club is known as the Ancient City Hunting Club or Ancient City Hunt Club, this paper will refer to the group as the Ancient City Gun Club unless quoting a source.
29 “The Manucy Family Tree,” The Manucy Family, Accessed October 10, 2014. http://manucy.com/html/trees/main_tree/manucy/index.htm.
meeting requests in early 1963. Manucy held to his belief that his two jobs were “raisin’ pigs and shootin’ niggers.”32
From the sit-ins in 1963 to the racial crisis in 1964, the white community in St. Augustine and the Ku Klux Klan shared convictions and prejudices. Both groups blamed outsiders for creating and sustaining the conflict. Both targeted the SCLC in particular. After, when local leaders could no longer deny the violence of the Ku Klux Klan and white segregationists, they crassly blamed the visitors from Georgia and other parts of Florida.33 Manucy also accused northern tourists who frequented St. Augustine’s beaches of inciting violence during beach wade-ins. Referring to racial integration, Manucy alleged “you’d be surprised at the tourists… [they] just didn’t like it you know.”34 Both groups also rejected the idea that race relations before the crisis suffered from the lack of communication or inequality that permeated it. City
Commissioners focused on the official desegregation of public facilities despite the fact that the Florida Advisory Commission stated that racial conditions “were considerably worse than in most, if not all, other cities in the state.”35 Manucy claimed in a 1976 interview that “mostly no problems” existed between the races, “none whatsoever. Wasn’t no big problem with the local colored at all.”36
Civil Rights Demonstrators
The civil rights demonstrators in St. Augustine fought against the very social structure of the city when integrating St. Augustine. While white and black St. Augustinians had lived
32 Newton, The Invisible Empire, 163. 33 Warren, If It Takes All Summer, 185.
34 Halstead Manucy, interview by Edward Kallal, Jr., February 21, 1976, transcript, Civil Rights Library of St. Augustine, 15.
together without evident acrimony, the sit-ins shattered any illusion of racial harmony in 1963. The NAACP directed the sit-ins in St. Augustine which were largely undertaken by young black students. Robert Hayling headed the NAACP Youth Council in St. Augustine and became a leader of the efforts to desegregate the city. This section backgrounds the development of the civil rights movement in St. Augustine prior to the sit-ins in 1963.
In Florida, civil rights activists faced serious obstacles just like their counterparts in other southern states. In 1954, when the Supreme Court handed down the Brown decision, Florida lagged behind other states in its desegregation efforts. Florida was one of only four states with no form of school desegregation in 1954.37 Due to Florida’s relatively small black population (only 20% of the total population in 1950), influx of northern migrants, and diverse state economy, the residents reacted with less evident rancor to the Supreme Court’s decision. Avoiding “massive resistance,” Florida’s legislature bypassed the Brown decision with “pupil assignment” laws that allowed the state to assign students based on public welfare and health concerns.38 By 1960 and the election of Governor Bryant to office, the state’s stance on desegregation reflected the apparent inevitability of it. Officials eased their efforts to avoid integration through convoluted school choice programs. This appearance of inevitability to desegregation reflected in the efforts of some local governments to address racial problems in the early 1960s.
In Daytona Beach, by 1962, for example, locals opened dialogue between whites and blacks aimed at addressing racial inequality in the city. Indeed, Dan Warren characterized the situation in St. Augustine as in “stark contrast” to other Florida cities. By the summer of 1963, while St. Augustinians demonstrated, other Florida cities established biracial committees and announced the desegregation of private businesses. In Orlando, Mayor Bob Carr announced the 37 Colburn, Racial Change and Community Crisis, 25.
desegregation of over 50 area hotels and restaurants in July of 1963. In New Smyrna, Titusville, and Clearwater as well, the local governments established biracial committees and removed segregation signage from their towns.39
St. Augustine charted a different path than these comparably progressive cities. The black community there was economically vulnerable and politically powerless. In the 1940s, 70% of all male black workers in St. Augustine worked in service or manual labor. Over 70% of black women worked in private homes as domestics or in service. Only 3.8% of the black population were professionals. This occupational profile remained during the 1950s. Most blacks remained employed in service, farming, railroad, and construction positions. According to one source, “teaching and preaching offered the only advancement for blacks.”40
Despite the socioeconomic disparities between blacks and whites, the boundaries
segregating blacks and whites in the city were not rigid. White citizens, for example, frequented black dentists and blacks patronized establishments operated by white owners. Black leaders consequently did not anticipate that integrating St. Augustine would be difficult or especially controversial.41 When Henry Thompson, a young black student, tried to integrate the
Woolworth’s lunch counter in 1961, blacks in town discovered the extent of white commitments to segregation. The response of the police demonstrated that desegregation would not come easily in St. Augustine. Police arrested Thompson and tried to have him committed to a sanitarium. The idea of integrated lunch counters repulsed whites so much and was so
unthinkable that they assumed the young activist must be insane. Following Thompson’s efforts, 39 Warren, If It Takes All Summer, 11-14; General Baptist State Convention, “ Causeway Signs Removed After NAACP Branch Protests to Clearwater Officials” (proclamation, Tampa, Florida, 1962), Folder 7, Box C24, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People records, 1842-1999, Library of Congress, Washington D.C., 1.
the relatively inactive NAACP in St. Augustine organized more sit-ins in 1962 and the façade of peaceful coexistence in St. Augustine crumbled.42
The NAACP traditionally refrained from direct action and civil disobedience but this orientation changed in St. Augustine during the 1960s. Prior to the 1960s, the St. Augustine NAACP boasted around 20-30 active members and worked slowly on persuading local businesses to integrate. NAACP activists feared reprisal and alienation from the white
community if they pushed too hard for desegregation.43 Their reticence confirms that even if the white community did not acknowledge racial tensions prior to 1963 the black community did.
In 1960, Robert Hayling moved to St. Augustine and began to transform the local NAACP.44 A native Floridian from Tallahassee, Hayling experienced little racial discrimination in his youth. In 1951 he joined the Air Force and attended Officer Candidate School where he first encountered overt racism. After dental school in Tennessee, where he became actively involved in the civil rights movement, Hayling moved to St. Augustine. In St. Augustine he took over a popular dental practice and became the first black person admitted to the State Dental Association of Florida. Hayling treated a number of white patients, including members of the KKK.45 Hayling also continued his involvement in racial issues and took over the NAACP Youth Council. Hayling’s entrance into the St. Augustine NAACP effectively ended the legalistic approach formerly pursued by the organization. He proved instrumental in the efforts of St. Augustine’s black community to combat segregation and assert a role in the planning of the city’s quadricentennial anniversary. He planned sit-ins and worked to meet with the Mayor and
42 Ibid, 28-29. 43 Ibid, 31
44 Warren, If It Takes All Summer, 8.
city commission. He even went to Tallahassee to ask Governor Farris Bryant for help with integration.46
State Officials
State officials played an essential role in the crisis in St. Augustine in 1964. In 1963, the conflict transpired more locally, however state officials still played a role in the civil rights clashes. The NAACP reached out to Governor Bryant for assistance and Dan Warren involved himself once tensions escalated to violence. This background section examines state policy on civil rights as well as detailing Dan Warren’s unique qualifications that contributed to his success in St. Augustine. Throughout 1963 and early 1964, other state officials showed a reluctance to become involved in the difficulties St. Augustine faced.
The reluctance of state actors to become involved in the growing tension in St. Augustine reflected state policy on civil rights and integration. Government officials in Tallahassee adopted a position on desegregation of grudging enforcement of federal law. Democrats controlled state politics and none had faced significant opposition from Republicans for election since
Reconstruction.47 Floridians elected Leroy Collins in 1954 as a segregationist candidate. Collins, in actuality, acted moderately on race issues during his tenure as governor. However, the
governor’s moderate stance did not change white attitudes or the actions of the state legislature. Across Florida, even the most moderate politicians explicitly ran for office as pro-segregation to win their elections.48 In 1956, both US Senators and six of the eight US Representatives from Florida signed the so-called “Southern Manifesto,” which opposed school integration and accused the Supreme Court of abusing judicial power. The Florida legislature also investigated
46 Memo to Governor Farris Bryant, Gubernatorial Official Correspondence, Florida State Archives, Tallahassee
Florida.
the NAACP in the late 1950s. Its final report castigated the NAACP as “inimical to the well-being of Florida and her citizens.” Florida officials used contrivances to maintain segregation across the state. The State Supreme Court, for example, ruled in favor of allowing a black man to attend a Florida law school but then postposed the decision to determine if the school could survive the “public mischief” his enrollment might cause. 49
While other state officials circumvented the Supreme Court’s decision, Governor Collins acknowledged the validity of Supreme Court decisions as law. Nonetheless, Collins also
succumbed to the anti-integration pressures in Florida and allowed the legislature to enact a bill that disbanded public schools whenever federal troops mobilized in their vicinity. The law was Florida’s attempt to avoid a fiasco like that which unfolded in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1958.50
At the end of his term in 1960, Governor Collins established a committee to investigate civil rights in Florida. His successor, Farris Bryant, agreed to continue the committee but when the time came to appoint new members, he let the committee lapse. He would later use this same method to circumvent demands for a biracial committee in St. Augustine in 1964.51 Bryant’s inaction in appointing new members to the committee reflected the stance of his administration toward civil rights during the early 1960s. Florida’s government followed the laws of the United States without enthusiasm and did not actively promote or enforce desegregation. Bryant
personally believed in allowing desegregation to happen gradually or not at all. He appeared on “Meet the Press” in July 1963 and expressed his position as a “freedomist.” According to Bryant, people segregated themselves for a reason and the government could not impose forced
integration. Bryant supported allowing people free choice on such matters as long as they
49 Ibid, 143-144. 50 Ibid, 144.
ensured equality of opportunity for everyone.52 Bryant further expressed his personal opinions on integration in November 1963 when he sent copies of a senator’s speech to Congress, in which the senator proposed a freedom of association amendment to the Constitution, to other governors across the country.53
Even while state officials were apathetic or privately hostile to desegregation, they could not ignore the worsening situation in St. Augustine. In 1963, Dan Warren, Governor Bryant, and Florida Attorney General James Kynes all expressed concerns about the situation there. Warren represented the state government officially throughout the entire crisis in 1964. Born and raised in Greensboro, North Carolina, Warren attended Guilford College, a Quaker institution, before attending Stetson Law School in Florida. As a student he supported the developing civil rights movement. During his undergraduate studies he and fellow students partnered with nearby North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College, a historically black college, and Bennett College, a private black college, to integrate social services in Guilford County, North Carolina.54
After graduating from law school, Warren and his family moved to Daytona Beach, Florida. There, Warren, noticing the entrenchment and corruption in Daytona politics, ran for a seat on the city council in 1952. He continued to practice law and served on the city council until the newly elected Governor Bryant appointed him as assistant state attorney in the 7th circuit. Bryant then promoted Warren after nine months following his superior’s resignation. Warren won the subsequent special election and served as State Attorney for the 7th circuit heading into
52 Farris Bryant, interview by Ned Brooks, Meet the Press, July 21, 1963, folder 1, box 90, Gubernatorial Official Correspondence, Florida State Archives, Tallahassee, Florida.
53 Farris Bryant to Governor of Hawaii, November 27, 1963, Folder 5, Box 113, Gubernatorial Official Correspondence, Florida State Archives, Tallahassee Florida.
1963.55 Beginning in 1963, Warren worked for peace in St. Augustine and was always determined to find equitable solutions to the crisis.
Federal Officials
More federal officials expressed interest in achieving solutions to the sit-in movement during 1963 than to the racial crisis in 1964. The federal quadricentennial commission, which lacked any black representatives, stimulated the push for the integration of restaurants in St. Augustine in 1963. In 1964, one federal official, Judge Bryan Simpson, played a role in solving the racial crisis. None of the court cases from 1963 were adjudicated by Simpson’s court, but he ruled on numerous cases pertaining to the crisis in 1964. This background section explores how federal officials stepped in to ease tensions surrounding the composition of the quadricentennial commission, only to step back in 1964.
In early 1963 President Kennedy appointed representatives to a quadricentennial
commission meant to plan the festivities for the four hundred year anniversary of St. Augustine in 1965. Congress also appropriated money to fund the celebrations that would include
delegations from Spain and other countries. The commission did not have any black representatives and the NAACP opposed the funds because they would help perpetuate
segregation in St. Augustine.56 The NAACP wrote to Vice President Lyndon Johnson about their concerns about the funds. They also urged him not to visit St. Augustine that summer as he planned because the city remained segregated. Johnson worked to appease the NAACP and urged the city to stop segregating public facilities so that he could visit. He also directed US Senator George Smathers to facilitate the negotiations between the NAACP and city leaders.
55 Ibid.
56 Internal Memorandum, May 22, 1963, Folder 7, Box C24, National Association for the Advancement of Colored
During the conflict in 1964, Bryan Simpson, chief federal judge for the Middle District of Florida, worked to ensure federal laws were enforced and followed. Other federal officials did not intervene in St. Augustine in 1964, instead pressuring the governor and local officials to ease tensions.
Judge Simpson’s rulings in 1964 were surprising for someone his age and with his background. He was born in 1903 in Kissimmee, Florida and graduated with a law degree from the University of Florida in 1926.57 Simpson’s family influenced his personal feelings on civil rights. His family was very prominent in Florida; his grandfather served five terms in the state House of Representatives and his two uncles represented Florida in the United States Senate. The Simpson family claimed Union ties in the Civil War and did not have a history of supporting racism.58 Judge Simpson first ruled on a case pertaining to race in 1948 when he was an elected circuit court judge. In the case, a black couple appealed a fine they had to pay for sitting in the white waiting room of a train station. Simpson ruled that the couple did not have grounds for an appeal because they had already paid the fine. In a 1977 interview with David Colburn, Simpson remarked that he was glad the case didn’t go to trial because ruling on it would have been
especially hard when he was an elected judge. Simpson insinuated that the opinion of voters would have been affected by a controversial decision in the case.59
President Truman appointed Simpson to federal court in Florida’s Southern District in 1950. Simpson expressed that once safely in an appointed position, judicial decisions on race cases were much easier. As an elected judge, Simpson had hesitated on unpopular opinions. But in his federal position, he did not mind being the person local officials “blamed” for enforcing
57 “Biographical Directory of Federal Judges: John Milton Bryan Simpson,” Federal Judicial Center,
http://www.fjc.gov/servlet/nGetInfo?jid=2197&cid=999&ctype=na&instate=na
58 Colburn, Racial Change and Community Crisis, 121.
unpopular laws. Certainly, Simpson’s rulings on the situation in St. Augustine made him very unpopular, leading to death threats.60 Simpson did not see himself as an innovator and instead relied on the precedents set by higher courts, such as the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision and the 1950 Henderson v. United States decision, which banned racial segregation in railroad dining cars. In 1961, Simpson became the chief judge of the Southern District of Florida and later that year assumed the chief judgeship for the Middle District of Florida.61
Judge Simpson is remembered as a champion of individual rights and for being “determined that no injustice be committed in his court.” He frequently questioned witnesses personally and stopped testimony to ask the lawyer or witness for a clarification. Judge Simpson always showed a dedication to do what he believed was right.62 This dedication defined his involvement in the crisis in St. Augustine. Beginning with the Mary Parkman Peabody’s case in April 1964 and continuing through August that year, Simpson ruled on countless cases pertaining to the racial crisis. In these cases Simpson showed a dedication to ensuring the rights of those legally and peacefully demonstrating and in enforcing law and order.
Escalating Tensions
After the unhelpful March 1963 meeting with City Manager Charles Barrier, local officials continually refused to negotiate with or validate the concerns of the demonstrators. On June 16, black leaders finally met with the entire city commission for a three-hour meeting during which black leaders aired grievances and asked for equal opportunity in the workplace and desegregated facilities. The city commissioners agreed to remove any signs denoting segregation of public facilities since no city ordinance prohibited integration. Encouraged, the
60 Ibid, 28-29.
two groups agreed to meet again on June 20.63 In the interim, however, city commissioners learned of a letter from St. Augustine NAACP President Fannie Fullerwood to President
Kennedy. This letter urged the president to withhold the federal funds appropriated for the city’s quadricentennial anniversary until the city embraced racial equality. City officials also became aware of remarks made by Hayling that implied the demonstrators would resort to violence to protect themselves.64 As a result, only two members of the commission attended the second meeting and all negotiations stalled until the commission met as a whole on June 28.65
The last formal contact between the city government and black leaders occurred at the June 28th meeting. As a result of the meeting, Mayor Joseph Shelley, rejected creating a biracial committee because the town had already desegregated public facilities. Furthermore, he
contended that local officials could not force private businesses to desegregate.66 Throughout 1963 and into the crisis in 1964, Mayor Shelley and his supporters repeated these claims, mantra-like, again and again. After the arrest of the St. Augustine Four made national news, the Florida Advisory Committee on Civil Rights investigated St. Augustine.67 During the committee’s investigation, none of the invited city officials and only one white businessman agreed to an interview; “such a boycott” of the committee did not occur in any other Florida city. The Florida Advisory Committee recommended federal intervention to ease tensions in St. Augustine and the forfeit of the funds appropriated for the city’s quadricentennial celebration.68 In response to the
63 Florida Legislative Investigating Committee, Racial and Civil Disorders in St. Augustine (government report, Tallahassee, 1965), 29.
64 United Press International, “Negro Leaders Here Sat They Are Arming in the Event of Race Trouble,” St.
Augustine Record (St. Augustine, FL), June 19, 1963. 65 Colburn, If It Takes All Summer, 36.
66 Ibid, 39.
67 The Florida Advisory Committee on Civil Rights is one of 51 State Advisory Committees under the purview of
committee’s findings, Mayor Shelley once again advised against a biracial commission because “racial tensions in our city have been misrepresented…and falsely propagandized.” Furthermore, Shelley contended “these committees have not proven successful in many communities in our state and in some instances have forced the resignations of duly elected City officials.”69
State Attorney General Kynes and Governor Bryant both became involved in July after the incarceration of the St. Augustine Four. Governor Bryant previously asked an aide to investigate the worsening situation in St. Augustine. His aide spoke with Sheriff Davis who claimed there was a little bit of trouble but nothing serious; it was all caused by some white and black youths.70 This explanation, despite the reports of escalating tensions in the city, seemingly satisfied Bryant. When a number of citizens, including the NAACP State Secretary, reached out to Bryant about the arrest of the St. Augustine Four, the governor blamed the children’s parents for not accepting the conditions set by Judge Mathis. Bryant also clarified that he did not have jurisdiction in local matters anyway.71 While Bryant avoided interfering, Kynes asked Judge Mathis not send the children away to reform school. Mathis refused and the children’s parents lost them to the bureaucracy of the legal system. Governor Bryant faced increasing pressure from the national media and inquiries by the parents to the Department of Education. In response he convened the Correctional Institutions Board which moved to release the students. Bryant eventually signed the students’ release that December.72
69 “Mayor Joseph Shelley to Florida Advisory Committee,” August 1963, Racial and Civil Disorders in St.
Augustine, Legislative Investigating Committee.
70 E.F. Emrich to Governor Bryant, July 18, 1963, Folder 2, Box 131, Gubernatorial Official Correspondence, Florida State Archives, Tallahassee, Florida.
71 Anonymous to Farris Bryant, December 3, 1963, Folder 5, Box 113, Gubernatorial Official Correspondence, Florida State Archives, Tallahassee, Florida.
While the controversy surrounding the St. Augustine Four unfolded, the civil rights movement in St. Augustine gained momentum. More and more youths joined the
demonstrations. By September 1963 even older black St. Augustinians began participating in the demonstrations.The first large scale demonstration in St. Augustine occurred on Labor Day. Around 125 NAACP supporters gathered in the main plaza to protest segregation and inequality in the city. The local police broke up the demonstration with dogs and cattle prods.73 As the civil rights movement picked up momentum, so did police violence. The white community denounced these mass demonstrations, blaming NAACP agitators and claiming that relations between the black and white communities remained amicable.74 The continued rejection of racial tensions by white leaders in St. Augustine, despite a growing civil rights movement in town, only furthered the tensions between the two groups. Rather than open dialogue with black leaders, the city’s officials ignored the demonstrations and the “agitators” that organized them.
The Ku Klux Klan noticed the escalating tensions in St. Augustine and Klan leaders arrived there in September to begin organizing white opposition. Connie Lynch, a preacher, traveled from Jacksonville and began working with Manucy’s Ancient City Gun Club. J.B. Stoner, founder of the National States’ Rights Party, also traveled to St. Augustine to incite opposition. Lynch brought Klansmen from Jacksonville with him and soon white segregationists from Florida and Georgia descended upon St. Augustine.75
On September 18, 1963 tensions erupted into open violence. Robert Hayling and three other men drove to the outskirts of town to observe a Ku Klux Klan rally. Connie Lynch, egged on the three hundred assembled Klansmen until they attacked the civil rights activists. Sheriff
73 Colburn, Racial Change and Community Crisis, 48. 74 Ibid, 51.
Davis arrived just in time, the segregationists had beaten them to a pulp and almost burned them alive. The Sheriff arrested four Klansmen, along with Hayling and his companions. A local judge dismissed the charges against the Klansmen because none of the black men could identify their attackers with certainty. However, two Klansmen testified that Hayling assaulted them; for his transgression he received a one hundred dollar fine.76
After the attack on Hayling and his companions at the September 18 Klan rally, Dan Warren became unofficially involved in St. Augustine. Warren did not prosecute the cases because they were only misdemeanors but he received updates from Sheriff Davis on the case and spoke with Hayling multiple times. After Hayling’s conviction Warren listened to his complaints about the injustice of the system but could not do anything to change the outcome.77
Tensions escalated as the Klan’s presence grew in the city and the NAACP
demonstrations continued. On October 24, Hoss Manucy’s son and William Kinard78 drove through Lincolnville, the black neighborhood, with shotguns. Later, Manucy’s son claimed they were returning from a hunting trip, even though they rode with loaded guns in their laps. From a home in the neighborhood someone shot at their vehicle, killing Kinard. Following the death of this young white man, the black community faced reprisals, including shots fired into the homes and establishments of prominent black leaders.Kinard’s death, officially ruled a homicide, prompted Warren’s first official involvement in the crisis in St. Augustine. Warren began an investigation into Kinard’s death and impaneled a grand jury in November to investigate the death and to consider measures to ease racial tensions in St. Augustine.79
76 Warren, If It Takes All Summer, 22. 77 Ibid, 23.
78 Some accounts name him as William Kincaid.
State Attorney General Kynes and Governor Bryant both took an active interest in the Kinard shooting. Kynes contacted Robert Hayling to discuss the importance of maintaining law and order in St. Augustine in the aftermath of the shooting. Hayling claimed he did not know who killed Kinard and expressed doubt about the impartiality of Sheriff Davis.80 When contacted by the NAACP, Bryant condemned Kinard’s killing and emphasized the importance of
prosecuting someone for the crime.81 In contrast to their previous inaction, Kynes and Bryant took an active interest in the Kinard shooting because it marked the first death in the St.
Augustine racial crisis. Kinard’s death and Hayling’s beating represented substantial escalation not only for the civil rights demonstrations but also for the state’s role in the conflict.
In November, the grand jury returned a decision on the shooting of Kinard and in mid-December a ruling on the racial tensions in the city. On November 5th, the grand jury indicted five men for Kinard’s death. Warren requested the grand jury reconvene in December to make recommendations about easing racial tensions in the St. Augustine. In December, the grand jury, made up of sixteen white and two black citizens, placed the blame for racial unrest on the Klan and other racial agitators. They declared the city’s officials acted in an exemplary manner given the situation and that productive conversation between responsible parties could ease racial tensions.82 However, according to Warren, community leaders failed to respond. “St. Augustine,” he lamented, “was about to reap a whirlwind of violence through the inaction of city and county officials.”83
80 James Kynes and Robert Hayling, phone conversation, October 28, 1963, Folder 2, Box 131, Gubernatorial Official Correspondence, Florida State Archives, Tallahassee, Florida.
81 Farris Bryant to Robert Saunders, November 2, 1963, Folder 2, Box 131, Gubernatorial Official Correspondence, Tallahassee, Florida.
82 Grand Jury Presentment, December 1963, Gubernatorial Official Correspondence, Tallahassee, Florida.
At the end of 1963 Robert Hayling officially resigned from the NAACP. The NAACP thought his exit would appease city officials and renew discussion about a biracial committee. However, the city commissioners turned down Fannie Fullerwood, President of the St. Augustine NAACP, in her efforts to negotiate one last time in December 1963.84 Hayling’s resignation from the NAACP did not end his activism in the community and in 1964 he recruited the SCLC and Martin Luther King, Jr. to assist the civil rights demonstrators.
Throughout 1963 local officials rebuffed the attempts of the local NAACP to promote a more equal St. Augustine through integration. Tensions and divisions that might have been eased through committees and community conversations were instead settled on the street and in the courtroom. While Dan Warren was inhibited in his ability to intercede in St. Augustine in 1963 by his job description, Governor Bryant ignored requests for help from the NAACP and others. The demonstrations in 1963 provoked the ire of the KKK which mobilized in St. Augustine with the support of local whites like the members of the Ancient City Gun Club. After the city
commission ignored the attempts of the NAACP to negotiate in December, the organization stopped its efforts in the city. Robert Hayling took the helm of the local effort and requested the SCLC’s help in early 1964. The events of 1963 were a microcosm for the events that transpired in 1964. Increased state intervention or an effort to negotiate by local officials may well have staved off the marches and conflict that followed.
Doing Their Least: Official Responses to St. Augustine in 1964
On a humid March morning in 1964, Mary Parkman Peabody arrived in St. Augustine, Florida. A small woman, aged 72, and the mother of Massachusetts Governor Endicott Peabody, Mary Peabody travelled to St. Augustine to be arrested. She came with this singular purpose in order to show the nation the realities of segregation in America’s oldest city. Peabody arrived during Easter week, so she and her companions set off for the 10:00 a.m. service at Trinity Episcopal Church. Rather than admit the racially mixed group, the church cancelled the service. Undeterred, the group set off for the Ponce de Leon Motor Lodge, intending to eat a meal. The manager of the motel refused to serve the group. “This is a segregated establishment, only the white folks are allowed to eat here. Y’all need to leave,” he said. They waited. The police arrived, arrested them, and led Peabody, a grandmother of five, off to the county jail.85
By April 2, newspaper reporters from across the country descended on St. Augustine to cover the story of the governor’s mother arrested for supporting integration. SCLC lawyers sought the release of Mary Peabody and her companions, who remained in jail for two nights. By refusing to post bail, Mary Peabody brought St. Augustine into the national spotlight
permanently. After the group’s release on April 2, Mary Peabody returned to Massachusetts.86 The legion of news organizations did not follow her, however, and instead remained to report on the escalation of hostilities that hot summer.
That Spring, two things occurred that set St. Augustine toward hostilities that summer. On March 6, 1964 Robert Hayling, Henry Twine, Goldie Eubanks, and other black civil rights leaders in St. Augustine drove to Orlando where they met with SCLC representatives who were 85 Warren, If It Takes All Summer, 65-66; Robert D. McFadden, “MARY PEABODY, 89, RIGHTS ACTIVIST, DIES,” The New York Times, February 7, 1981, sec. Obituaries.
attending the annual meeting of the organization. Meeting with Reverend C.T. Vivian, personal advisor to King and a member of the SCLC Board of Directors, they described the racial situation in St. Augustine and the refusal of city leaders to open a dialogue with the black protestors. Hayling explained that all previous efforts to meet with city officials and picket segregated establishments had been rebuffed by local whites. Citing the reluctance of the local NAACP to step up integration efforts, they asked for the SCLC’s assistance in changing the situation in St. Augustine.87 It was at the invitation of the SCLC later that month that Mary Parkman Peabody and her companions arrived in St. Augustine.
Despite sending Mary Peabody to St. Augustine, the SCLC did not immediately commit to assisting integration efforts in America’s oldest city. In late March SCLC aides arrived to begin preparing accommodations and food for a large scale initiative. They also began teaching local demonstrators and northern volunteers about methods of civil disobedience and keeping composure under the most extreme duress. On March 31, over 150 people, most of whom attended St. Augustine’s Murray High, paraded through the city singing “We Shall Overcome.” After the students entered the restaurant at the Ponce De Leon hotel and refused to leave, police broke up the demonstration using dogs and cattle prods.88 Subsequently, the SCLC halted its involvement in St. Augustine while King decided whether to devote SCLC efforts to St.
Augustine or to another city. Meanwhile, local demonstrations floundered throughout May, and voters reelected Sheriff Davis with over 70% of the vote.89 Eventually, King made up his mind to devote resources to St. Augustine. Beginning in late May SCLC forces descended upon the city and organized with local leaders a plan to make a massive push toward integration in June.90 87 Colburn, Racial Change and Community Crisis, 61.
88 Ibid, 65-66. 89 Ibid, 75-77.
This chapter details the official responses to the crisis in St. Augustine before and during the summer of 1964. Governor Bryant, Dan Warren, local officials, and Judge Simpson all played pivotal roles in their decision making during the crisis. Governor Bryant and local officials played an important role in extending the crisis by doing the least they could to ameliorate the violence. Warren, in contrast, actively tried to combat the Klan’s violence and achieve the solutions the civil rights demonstrators sought. Although constrained by the limits of his judicial authority, Judge Simpson was the only federal actor who worked for solutions in St. Augustine. Unable to enforce his court rulings, Simpson worked in tandem with Warren to end hostilities in St. Augustine. While Warren and Simpson worked for solutions in St. Augustine, Governor Bryant instead focused on arguing for states’ rights against federal government intervention rather than addressing the crisis in St. Augustine.
“The true racial picture of St. Augustine has been distorted”
A claim that “the true racial picture of St. Augustine has been distorted” was made in the December 1963 Grand Jury presentment, but similar statements were made by local officials in St. Augustine throughout 1964.91 Mayor Shelley and Sheriff L.O. Davis rejected the idea that there were real racial tensions in their city. Governor Farris Bryant, too, acted willfully
complacent throughout the racial crisis. He downplayed the crisis and its potential dangers for months before grudgingly using his executive powers. Even the grand jury, impaneled by Dan Warren to find a solution to the racial problems, rejected the idea that local tensions played a large role in the problems the city faced in 1964. This inability of these groups to recognize the larger issues at hand influenced their judgment and predisposed them to distrust the civil rights demonstrators.
