| TRAVELS OF DURSMIRG VOLUME IV THE ROGUES OF ST. AUGUSTINE AND OTHER SOCIAL MISFITS Chapter 10 |
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Chapter 10 SMOLDERING BOMBS OF THE 1960’S
Quiet little St. Augustine had some smoldering bombs just waiting to blow that stagnant little suck hole into the
international news.
Make no mistake about it, St. Augustine and St. John’s County have been the “Heart of Dixie” and as down south as
anyplace in the country for many a year. Incidents of racial xenophobic injustice lie at the very beginnings of this areas
European dominance.
These incidents are too numerous to cover in this document, read more in Appendix 2 of this volume.
The Civil Rights Era from 1960 to 1965 left a deep wound and permanent scar on St. Augustine where pivotal political
pressure drove the heads of government to enact the 1964 Civil Rights Act July 2nd of that year.
President Lyndon B. Johnson signed that bill with Dr. Martin Luther King at his side under the gun of national hysterical
pressure.
A quote from Dr. Martin Luther King;
“One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to
disobey unjust laws. An unjust law is no law at all!”
***
Sheriff Lawrence O “L. O.” Davis was in office (from 1949 until 1970) when the bomb blew up and not all of the sheriff’s
men, nor the county’s police or even the State’s troopers could put little St. Augustine back together again.
The Federal troops laid siege and bad little St. Augustine had four months of martial law just to stomp out those
explosive bombs, but the fire still smolders.
St. Augustine’s population dropped from 14,734 to near 12,000 in just a few months in 1963-64 when the Reverend
Martin Luther King and his associates came to town. Among the atrocities committed by King and his group were a wade
in at the local swimming beach and sit-ins at lunch counters.
King was arrested by Federal agents and booked into St. Johns County jail at the same time the entire country suffered
with bloody race riots. Hostilities didn’t die in 1963 but smoldered on for nearly another year.
Because this was such a monumental event in the history of America, I will here insert a direct quote by Andrew Young
as he literally sacrificed himself to the civil rights movement at St. Augustine, Florida:
***
Andrew Young, in his spiritual memoirs titled A Way Out of No Way, reflects on a dangerous crossing he made in the
summer of 1964 in St. Augustine, Florida shortly before the Civil Rights Act was passed by Congress and signed into
law by President Lyndon Baines Johnson on July 2 of that same year.
He writes: “I arrived in St. Augustine in the late evening. There was a white mob gathered around the town square. I
went directly to the church to join the mass meeting in progress. About 100 people, mostly older women and young
teenagers, were gathered in a small church. As Hosea [Williams] saw me enter at the back of the church, he
announced, ‘Reverend Andy Young is here to lead the demonstration,’ and he called for volunteers to march with me
down to the Old Slave Market near the town square. At that point, I had no intention of leading anyone into that mob.
They were shouting and drinking and generally trying to intimidate anyone who might want to challenge the traditions
represented by the Old Slave Market. But I didn’t want anyone else to lead people down there either. When I discovered
that this march had already been announced… I decided I would lead the march in order to keep things under control….
We marched from the church with just about 30 demonstrators. It was not a very impressive group….But then
movements seemed to start with only the chosen, courageous few….As we approached the street leading to the town
square, we were stopped by Sheriff L. O. Davis. He told us to turn around and go back. There was a mob of four or five
hundred people in the square, and he only had twenty-seven men on his force, so they could not possibly assure us of
safety or offer any protection against that mob. He had already convinced me, but I asked the group to form a circle so
that we could pray for guidance….
After I prayed, one of the “good ol’ sisters”sang out in a loud, clear voice: “Be not dismayed, whate’er be tied, God will
take care of you. Beneath his wings of love abide, God will take care of you.”
Then everyone joined in on the chorus:
“God will take care of you, through every day…all the way; He will take care of you, God will take care of you.”
We sang out an affirmation of faith that was about to be tested… .
We marched, still singing softly, “God will take care of you.” And I thought to myself,
It’s one thing to sing in this church where it’s easy to believe it, but the song says through
every day, and this is nighttime in St. Augustine.
The mob was still a block away, but they too, became strangely quiet when they realized that we were marching toward
them. The silence was broken by the rattle of chains and the shattering of a bottle. It was easy to anticipate what they
had in mind. Mobs could do almost anything under the cover of night, especially when they really had the support of the
local law enforcement.
I began to understand what it meant to “walk through the valley of the shadow of death… and fear no evil” (Psalm 23:4,
KJV). I was not afraid for some reason. Perhaps because I was determined that none of those good people get hurt.
Soon we approached a road blocked by a group of burly white men. I stopped the march and decided that we must try
to talk to them. There was no turning back, so I walked over to the gang…
The sheriff was nowhere to be found. I don’t think I even got a word out. I was standing face-to-face with the man who
seemed like the leader, and then someone blindsided me. I didn’t feel a thing, but I remember being hit in the jaw with
someone’s best punch and almost simultaneously being clubbed with what must have been a blackjack. From then on, it
was lights out. Only several years later did I see a film clip of the beating I took. I was stomped and kicked and probably
only spared serious injury because I… rolled into
a ball and protected my head and stomach from direct blows.
When I came to my senses, I was being helped to my feet by Willie Bolden of the SCLC staff…. I was only determined
that we keep on marching. ...I knew that we could not let this violence stop our march. If it did, it would crush our
movement….
The mob had left me on the ground and moved back into the park, certain that I had learned my lesson. As I came back
to the front of the line I said, “We can’t stop now, let’s
go… .
I don’t know what motivated us to march on, but it certainly wasn’t cheekiness. It was closer to faith and determined
belief that “the Lord will make a way out of no way.” But the way was not to open yet. The same gang moved to the entry
of the park closest to the Old Slave Market and once again blocked our way. Again I kept marching slowly and surely
until they stood a few feet in front of us.
This time, I did get to utter a couple of sentences. “We’re not here to do you any harm,” I said simply. “We merely want
to have a word of prayer at this place where our ancestors were bought and sold as slaves, to ask God to help us end
slavery in all its forms.” … .
And then… Sheriff Davis appeared and waved the crowd away with one sweep of his hand and said, “Let ‘em through.”
Now we walked on to the Old Slave Market, knelt in prayer, and then returned to the church without incident. After
several weeks of having walked “through the valley of the shadow of death,” we were pleasantly surprised by the
friendly but nervous reception we received as we went to the very places where we previously had been brutalized and
arrested and quietly ordered coffee. When the nervous waitress poured coffee to overflowing and offered apologetically
to get a new cup, I was filled with joy: Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies; thou anointest
my head with oil; my [coffee] cup runneth over. (Andrew Young, A Way Out of No Way, Pages 90-97)”
***
The racial hatred that built this bomb sent lynch mob mentality running wild to terrorize and kill with impunity and the
blacks were without a doubt on the short end of this very bloody stick.
As author John Ross so aptly put it; “Welcome to the United Snakes of Amerikkka!”
Well, the nation and the world for that matter took notice of the hate crimes that this stagnant little suck hole was
perpetrating on its own citizens and the federal government was forced to step in and take sanctions.
For ten years there would be absolutely no Federal aid of any kind sent to St. John’s County as punishment for these
atrocities.
(These sanctions included federally backed loans, highway money and any other federal grants or aid.)
A black friend of ours from St. Augustine, Daniel M., told us that his grandmother always used to say; “The only niggers
I have ever seen were white”.
After 22 years of living down in the sunny south country, “The Heart of Dixie” I must concur with Daniel’s grandmother.
Sheriff (L. O) Davis who held the reigns of police power in St. Johns County through this whole ordeal had built a
reputation that outlived him by many years.
Our dear old friend and partner George Tappin, (who you will meet again later in this volume) happened to have been
born and raised in the rural outback of St. Johns County and personally witnessed how Sheriff L. O. Davis ruled with an
“Iron Fist”.
Here is what George had to say about Sheriff L. O. Davis;
“Davis didn’t need to pack a gun when he went to settle a disturbance in a black neighborhood. With hands bigger than
a meat platter he would slap the biggest black buck to the ground with one swipe. Then tell him that he had ten minutes
to be on the jailhouse steps. Davis wasn’t going to have any “nigger” riding in his automobile. Sheriff L. O. Davis was
one tough son of a bitch and everybody knew it!”
In spite of his reputation as the sheriff with “Iron Fists” Davis had many citizens that spoke well of him for many of his
kindnesses, bringing groceries to needy families and helping others find jobs.
The net result of all of this was that St. Augustine and St. Johns County became the most economically depressed area
in the entire state of Florida by the early 1970s.
This is when Jane and I arrived aboard our vessel Dursmirg, December 15, 1972, and we were shocked and surprised
to meet well dressed black people in downtown St. Augustine and have them step off the curb, bow and tip their hat to
let us pass.
Well, the curse seemed to be on this stagnant little suck hole because just about the time that the federal sanctions
were lifted along came two Arab oil embargos back to back that put the brakes on the economy of the entire country
and Florida’s financial status went directly into the toilet and was hurt as bad as anyplace in the entire nation.
Just when St. Augustine looked like it might struggle out of its economic nose dive, sure enough, things did get worse. In
fact condominiums that were not completed when the Arab oil embargos hit were being sold off board by board and
piece by piece just to forestall foreclosure.
Things in St. Augustine were so bad economically in the 1970s that people would go to neighboring Jacksonville, “the
chemical valley of Florida” that was notoriously known as the “minimum wage capital of America” to better themselves.
Somehow St. Augustine uniquely does not fit with Florida or the rest of the nation for that matter. It is different, a square
peg, and an oddity. Many times it is referred to as “St. Augustine, Georgia because it is a marginalized geographical
misfit.
If you didn’t need to make any money, had a sailboat to live aboard, a bicycle to ride and knew how to live out of the
river, it was a terrific time to be in St. Augustine and we were there.
Quiet little St. Augustine had some smoldering bombs just waiting to blow that stagnant little suck hole into the
international news.
Make no mistake about it, St. Augustine and St. John’s County have been the “Heart of Dixie” and as down south as
anyplace in the country for many a year. Incidents of racial xenophobic injustice lie at the very beginnings of this areas
European dominance.
These incidents are too numerous to cover in this document, read more in Appendix 2 of this volume.
The Civil Rights Era from 1960 to 1965 left a deep wound and permanent scar on St. Augustine where pivotal political
pressure drove the heads of government to enact the 1964 Civil Rights Act July 2nd of that year.
President Lyndon B. Johnson signed that bill with Dr. Martin Luther King at his side under the gun of national hysterical
pressure.
A quote from Dr. Martin Luther King;
“One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to
disobey unjust laws. An unjust law is no law at all!”
***
Sheriff Lawrence O “L. O.” Davis was in office (from 1949 until 1970) when the bomb blew up and not all of the sheriff’s
men, nor the county’s police or even the State’s troopers could put little St. Augustine back together again.
The Federal troops laid siege and bad little St. Augustine had four months of martial law just to stomp out those
explosive bombs, but the fire still smolders.
St. Augustine’s population dropped from 14,734 to near 12,000 in just a few months in 1963-64 when the Reverend
Martin Luther King and his associates came to town. Among the atrocities committed by King and his group were a wade
in at the local swimming beach and sit-ins at lunch counters.
King was arrested by Federal agents and booked into St. Johns County jail at the same time the entire country suffered
with bloody race riots. Hostilities didn’t die in 1963 but smoldered on for nearly another year.
Because this was such a monumental event in the history of America, I will here insert a direct quote by Andrew Young
as he literally sacrificed himself to the civil rights movement at St. Augustine, Florida:
***
Andrew Young, in his spiritual memoirs titled A Way Out of No Way, reflects on a dangerous crossing he made in the
summer of 1964 in St. Augustine, Florida shortly before the Civil Rights Act was passed by Congress and signed into
law by President Lyndon Baines Johnson on July 2 of that same year.
He writes: “I arrived in St. Augustine in the late evening. There was a white mob gathered around the town square. I
went directly to the church to join the mass meeting in progress. About 100 people, mostly older women and young
teenagers, were gathered in a small church. As Hosea [Williams] saw me enter at the back of the church, he
announced, ‘Reverend Andy Young is here to lead the demonstration,’ and he called for volunteers to march with me
down to the Old Slave Market near the town square. At that point, I had no intention of leading anyone into that mob.
They were shouting and drinking and generally trying to intimidate anyone who might want to challenge the traditions
represented by the Old Slave Market. But I didn’t want anyone else to lead people down there either. When I discovered
that this march had already been announced… I decided I would lead the march in order to keep things under control….
We marched from the church with just about 30 demonstrators. It was not a very impressive group….But then
movements seemed to start with only the chosen, courageous few….As we approached the street leading to the town
square, we were stopped by Sheriff L. O. Davis. He told us to turn around and go back. There was a mob of four or five
hundred people in the square, and he only had twenty-seven men on his force, so they could not possibly assure us of
safety or offer any protection against that mob. He had already convinced me, but I asked the group to form a circle so
that we could pray for guidance….
After I prayed, one of the “good ol’ sisters”sang out in a loud, clear voice: “Be not dismayed, whate’er be tied, God will
take care of you. Beneath his wings of love abide, God will take care of you.”
Then everyone joined in on the chorus:
“God will take care of you, through every day…all the way; He will take care of you, God will take care of you.”
We sang out an affirmation of faith that was about to be tested… .
We marched, still singing softly, “God will take care of you.” And I thought to myself,
It’s one thing to sing in this church where it’s easy to believe it, but the song says through
every day, and this is nighttime in St. Augustine.
The mob was still a block away, but they too, became strangely quiet when they realized that we were marching toward
them. The silence was broken by the rattle of chains and the shattering of a bottle. It was easy to anticipate what they
had in mind. Mobs could do almost anything under the cover of night, especially when they really had the support of the
local law enforcement.
I began to understand what it meant to “walk through the valley of the shadow of death… and fear no evil” (Psalm 23:4,
KJV). I was not afraid for some reason. Perhaps because I was determined that none of those good people get hurt.
Soon we approached a road blocked by a group of burly white men. I stopped the march and decided that we must try
to talk to them. There was no turning back, so I walked over to the gang…
The sheriff was nowhere to be found. I don’t think I even got a word out. I was standing face-to-face with the man who
seemed like the leader, and then someone blindsided me. I didn’t feel a thing, but I remember being hit in the jaw with
someone’s best punch and almost simultaneously being clubbed with what must have been a blackjack. From then on, it
was lights out. Only several years later did I see a film clip of the beating I took. I was stomped and kicked and probably
only spared serious injury because I… rolled into
a ball and protected my head and stomach from direct blows.
When I came to my senses, I was being helped to my feet by Willie Bolden of the SCLC staff…. I was only determined
that we keep on marching. ...I knew that we could not let this violence stop our march. If it did, it would crush our
movement….
The mob had left me on the ground and moved back into the park, certain that I had learned my lesson. As I came back
to the front of the line I said, “We can’t stop now, let’s
go… .
I don’t know what motivated us to march on, but it certainly wasn’t cheekiness. It was closer to faith and determined
belief that “the Lord will make a way out of no way.” But the way was not to open yet. The same gang moved to the entry
of the park closest to the Old Slave Market and once again blocked our way. Again I kept marching slowly and surely
until they stood a few feet in front of us.
This time, I did get to utter a couple of sentences. “We’re not here to do you any harm,” I said simply. “We merely want
to have a word of prayer at this place where our ancestors were bought and sold as slaves, to ask God to help us end
slavery in all its forms.” … .
And then… Sheriff Davis appeared and waved the crowd away with one sweep of his hand and said, “Let ‘em through.”
Now we walked on to the Old Slave Market, knelt in prayer, and then returned to the church without incident. After
several weeks of having walked “through the valley of the shadow of death,” we were pleasantly surprised by the
friendly but nervous reception we received as we went to the very places where we previously had been brutalized and
arrested and quietly ordered coffee. When the nervous waitress poured coffee to overflowing and offered apologetically
to get a new cup, I was filled with joy: Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies; thou anointest
my head with oil; my [coffee] cup runneth over. (Andrew Young, A Way Out of No Way, Pages 90-97)”
***
The racial hatred that built this bomb sent lynch mob mentality running wild to terrorize and kill with impunity and the
blacks were without a doubt on the short end of this very bloody stick.
As author John Ross so aptly put it; “Welcome to the United Snakes of Amerikkka!”
Well, the nation and the world for that matter took notice of the hate crimes that this stagnant little suck hole was
perpetrating on its own citizens and the federal government was forced to step in and take sanctions.
For ten years there would be absolutely no Federal aid of any kind sent to St. John’s County as punishment for these
atrocities.
(These sanctions included federally backed loans, highway money and any other federal grants or aid.)
A black friend of ours from St. Augustine, Daniel M., told us that his grandmother always used to say; “The only niggers
I have ever seen were white”.
After 22 years of living down in the sunny south country, “The Heart of Dixie” I must concur with Daniel’s grandmother.
Sheriff (L. O) Davis who held the reigns of police power in St. Johns County through this whole ordeal had built a
reputation that outlived him by many years.
Our dear old friend and partner George Tappin, (who you will meet again later in this volume) happened to have been
born and raised in the rural outback of St. Johns County and personally witnessed how Sheriff L. O. Davis ruled with an
“Iron Fist”.
Here is what George had to say about Sheriff L. O. Davis;
“Davis didn’t need to pack a gun when he went to settle a disturbance in a black neighborhood. With hands bigger than
a meat platter he would slap the biggest black buck to the ground with one swipe. Then tell him that he had ten minutes
to be on the jailhouse steps. Davis wasn’t going to have any “nigger” riding in his automobile. Sheriff L. O. Davis was
one tough son of a bitch and everybody knew it!”
In spite of his reputation as the sheriff with “Iron Fists” Davis had many citizens that spoke well of him for many of his
kindnesses, bringing groceries to needy families and helping others find jobs.
The net result of all of this was that St. Augustine and St. Johns County became the most economically depressed area
in the entire state of Florida by the early 1970s.
This is when Jane and I arrived aboard our vessel Dursmirg, December 15, 1972, and we were shocked and surprised
to meet well dressed black people in downtown St. Augustine and have them step off the curb, bow and tip their hat to
let us pass.
Well, the curse seemed to be on this stagnant little suck hole because just about the time that the federal sanctions
were lifted along came two Arab oil embargos back to back that put the brakes on the economy of the entire country
and Florida’s financial status went directly into the toilet and was hurt as bad as anyplace in the entire nation.
Just when St. Augustine looked like it might struggle out of its economic nose dive, sure enough, things did get worse. In
fact condominiums that were not completed when the Arab oil embargos hit were being sold off board by board and
piece by piece just to forestall foreclosure.
Things in St. Augustine were so bad economically in the 1970s that people would go to neighboring Jacksonville, “the
chemical valley of Florida” that was notoriously known as the “minimum wage capital of America” to better themselves.
Somehow St. Augustine uniquely does not fit with Florida or the rest of the nation for that matter. It is different, a square
peg, and an oddity. Many times it is referred to as “St. Augustine, Georgia because it is a marginalized geographical
misfit.
If you didn’t need to make any money, had a sailboat to live aboard, a bicycle to ride and knew how to live out of the
river, it was a terrific time to be in St. Augustine and we were there.
What little glitter and glitz that St. Augustine possesses was brought by this man, Henry Flagler, whose
bronze statue stands before the main entrance of Flagler College formerly one of his state of the art five
star hotels.
go to chapter 11
bronze statue stands before the main entrance of Flagler College formerly one of his state of the art five
star hotels.
go to chapter 11