By Don Valentine
Dr. King orchestrated a crescendo of civil protests to sway LBJ to sign the Civil Rights Act. The “Drum Major” was aware of the race explosion brewing in St Augustine. The protests were led by Dr. Robert Hayling, a heroic local Black dentist, the NAACP youth council and the SCLC. It was noted by blackpast.org, “He led the group in protests against plans to celebrate St. Augustine’s 400th birthday as the nation’s oldest European settlement on an all-White basis.”
In July ‘63, a sit-in protest at a local Woolworth’s lunch counter ended in the imprisonment of 16 young Black protestors and seven juveniles. The protestors were offered plea deals but refused them. Four of the arrested juveniles became the torch-bearers, known nationally as the “St. Augustine Four.” Baseball star Jackie Robinson, the NAACP, and the Pittsburgh Courier, among others, criticized the injustice. The negative publicity caused the city to release them in ‘64.
The Stanford ML King Research Institute wrote, “…protests led by Hayling were uniformly met with resistance by White residents, city officials, and the police. During the last half of 1963, Black residents faced violence at the hands of White segregationists. Blackpost.org noted, “Rare among civil rights leaders at the time, Hayling was an advocate of armed self-defense against the Ku Klux Klan…”
Dr. Haylings continued on with his mission and met quietly, in Orlando, with Dr. King to plan the ‘64 Spring Break protests in St. Augustine. This organized civil disobedience morphed into the “Splash Heard Around The World.” Black and White students along the East coast flocked there to protest segregation. Dr. King was arrested for trying to stay at the all White Monson Hotel. While in jail, he wrote a Letter from the St. Augustine Jail to his friend, Rabbi Israel Dresner in New Jersey. He urged him to recruit rabbis to come to St. Augustine to participate in the fight. They arrived in June of ’64, and 17 rabbis were arrested at the Monson.
Pictures of interracial students wading into the Atlantic to be arrested by the police were an embarrassment for the Johnson administration. Civil Rights travel.com recounted, “…white activist, Al Lingo, checked into the hotel, and invited Black protesters to join him in the pool. The site of an integrated swimming pool so outraged the hotel manager, that he ran around the pool, pouring acid into the water. It became known as “The Splash Heard Around The World.” The global shame forced LBJ to sign the act a few days later.
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