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1 Protest and Reaction In 1964 St. Augustine became a battleground in America’s unfinished Civil War. That war had been fought to preserve the Union and bring a measure of equality to millions who had been held in slavery. At the end of that great struggle, it was the fervent hope of the nation that passage of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments would end the nightmare of slavery. It was not to be. Instead, slavery was replaced with a degrading form of second-class citizenship: segregation. St. Augustine is the oldest continuously occupied city in the nation, and 1965 would mark the four hundredth year of its founding. In March 1963 city fathers planned an elaborate dinner to dedicate the first phase of restoring the old section of St. Augustine, called the Avero restoration area. The vice president of the United States, Lyndon Johnson, had been invited to deliver the welcoming address. But no blacks were among the local luminaries and prominent citizens invited to attend the momentous occasion. This exclusion of a large portion of the community set off a series of events that ultimately brought Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to St. Augustine. Congress had passed a resolution in 1962 authorizing the establishment of a Quadricentennial Commission to celebrate the four hundredth anniversary of the founding of St. Augustine. The resolution called for the appointment of two members of the commission from the House, two from the Senate, and one from the Department of the Interior; the remaining members were to be appointed by the president. The House 6 / Dan R.Warren appointed Florida representatives D. R. Matthews and William C. Cramer ;the Senate,Florida senators George Smathers and Spessard Holland. Conrad Wirth, director of the National Park Service, was the Interior appointee. In March 1963 President John F. Kennedy appointed the remaining members: Henry Ford II from Detroit; J.Peter Grace,from New York City; Joseph P. Hurley, from St. Augustine; Herbert E. Wolfe from St. Augustine; Edward Litchfield from Pittsburgh; and Charles Clark from Washington D.C.1 However, Congress failed to provide funds for the commission’s work. In May 1963 Senators Holland and Smathers introduced a bill authorizing a federal appropriation of $350,000 dollars to help finance the city’s four hundredth anniversary celebration.2 Despite the use of state and federal funds, no one from the black community was invited to attend nor was any black appointed to the commission. Incensed over the promoters’ insensitivity in ignoring one-quarter of the city’s population, civil rights activists conducted a series of protests that ignited the final battle in the efforts to achieve passage of a meaningful Civil Rights Act. At the time, the events taking place in St. Augustine had little significance for me. But for civil rights activists in St. Augustine, such as Fannie Fulwood and Elizabeth Hawthorne, president and secretary, respectively , of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the exclusion of blacks from this historical celebration was an “undemocratic” act unworthy of financial support from the federal government. During Vice President Lyndon Johnson’s March 12 visit to St. Augustine, his chief of staff had agreed to intercede with local officials and to set up a meeting between members of the local chapter of the NAACP and the city commissioners of St. Augustine to air their complaints.That promise was not kept. On May 7, 1963, they sent a heartfelt letter to President Kennedy. “Since St. Augustine is the nation’s oldest city we feel democracy should work here,” they wrote. Calling the president’s attention to the fact that “St. Augustine still maintains segregated public facilities, public schools” and that “Negroes are employed as laborers or in manual jobs by the city and county, let us prove to the Communists and the entire world that America’s oldest city can truly be a showcase of democracy.”They also reminded the president of promises made by George Reedy, the vice presi- Protest and Reaction / 7 dent’s chief of staff, to intercede with local officials, complaining that “the city commission failed to keep its promise for a meeting with a Delegation of Negro Citizens the day after Mr. Johnson’s visit.” In closing they pleaded, “our organization will await your advice and assistance in correcting these conditions.”3 Their plea was in vain. The president did not respond. The city, however , was “shocked” that...

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