phinsup

The first white settlement in what is now the US was founded in St. Augustine, FL





http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Augustine,_Florida

Rob x-7

even back then they had to evacuate

1revnrex

Who? The Blacks?

defprun

You can blame the French indirectly for Limp Bizkit.

j9fd3s

anyone who lives in florida

Baldy

"...and 2 days later, the first boat full of retirees arived from England."

1revnrex

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 6 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 and could find no work.



In 1963 a sit-in protest at a local diner ended in the arrest and imprisonment of 16 young black protestors and 7 juveniles. Four of the children, two of whom were 16 year old girls, were sent to “reform” school and retained for 6 months.



In September 1963, the Ku Klux Klan staged a rally of several hundred Klansmen on the outskirts of town. They seized NAACP leader and local dentist Robert Hayling and three other NAACP activists who they beat with fists, chains, and clubs. The four men were rescued by Highway Patrol officers. St. Johns County Sheriff L. O. Davis arrested four white men for the beating and also arrested the four unarmed blacks for "assaulting" the large crowd of armed Klansmen. Charges against the Klansmen were dismissed, but Hayling was convicted of "criminal assault" against the KKK mob. In the summer of 1964 a massive non-violent direct action campaign was led by Hayling, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), Martin Luther King, Jr., Ralph Abernathy, Andrew Young, Dorothy Cotton and other major civil rights leaders intent on changing the conditions of blacks in St. Augustine.[5]



St. Augustine Lighthouse



From May until July 1964 protesters endured abuse, beatings, and verbal assaults without any retaliation. By absorbing the violence and hate instead of striking back the protesters gained national sympathy and, it is thought, were a key factor in passing the Civil Rights Act of 1964.



The movement engaged in nightly marches down King Street. The protesters were met by white segregationists who violently assaulted them. Hundreds of the marchers were arrested and jailed. Because of the huge numbers of demonstrators in the jail people were kept in a stockade during the day in the hot sun with no shade. When attempts were made to integrate the beaches of Anastasia Island demonstrators were beaten and driven into the water by police and segregationists. Some of the protesters could not swim and had to be saved from drowning by other demonstrators.



The demonstrations came to a climax when a group of black and white protesters jumped into the swimming pool at the Monson Motel, an entirely white hotel where several other protests had been held. In response to the protest the owner of the hotel, James Brock, who was a usually shy and passive man, was photographed pouring muriatic acid into the pool to get the protesters out. Photographs of this, and of a policeman jumping into the pool to arrest them, were broadcast around the world and became some of the most famous images of the entire civil rights movement.

1revnrex

Thats why I joked about the Blacks evacuating. Anyone from FL knows how racist that city was just a few years ago.