Civil Rights demonstrator arrested

For their attempts to desegregate the restaurant and swimming pool of the Monson Motor Lodge located on Avenida Menendez, today, in 1964, Dr Martin Luther King, Jr, was arrested in St Augustine along with seventeen companions for a violation of Florida’s “unwanted guest” law.

Monson owner and manager, Jimmy Brock, was thrust into the national spotlight when network news affiliates broadcast images of him standing in the dining room door to block King from entering, and another of him pouring muriatic acid into the guest swimming pool to force demonstrators out of the water.