The wicked web we weave
PART 3
By this time, Hackworth told Historic City News that he could see that Dana Ste. Claire didn’t “get it”, but wanting to remain cordial and professional, he agreed to meet Ste. Claire for a second, and final, lunch.
The only condition, Hackworth picked up the check this time. Ste. Claire responded to the invitation writing, “Great! I’ll see you on Thursday at the Cracker Café. You’ll have to fight me for the bill!”
(If you could see me right now, I’m shaking my head)
Hackworth responded:
Subject: RE: Woolworth image
From: <CB Hackworth>
Date: Wed, October 09, 2013 11:38 am
To: “Dana Ste. Claire”Dear Dana,
I don’t want to fight over the bill. It’s a condition.
At my first opportunity, I will do as thorough a search as possible to see if the “clean” Woolworth image still exists. If it does, you can have it — though I suspect the resolution is only “internet quality” and not 300 dpi. Failing that, I’m sure you can have the Photoshop work replicated for $500 or so by any number of artists.
With regard to your exhibit, the train obviously has left the station and is on a set course on the wrong track. I’ve expressed serious criticism and concerns. I appreciate having had an opportunity to make them known, but under the circumstances I also must tell you I do not envision a role for myself in what you are doing.
If that makes the lunch tomorrow unnecessary, please don’t feel bad about letting me know. Otherwise, it is still on my calendar.
Regards,
CBH
An hour later, Ste. Claire responds
Subject: RE: Woolworth image
From: “Dana Ste. Claire”
Date: Wed, October 09, 2013 12:29 pm
To: <CB Hackworth>CB,
Fair enough … you can buy lunch. I won’t try to hide the fact that I’m disappointed you are uncomfortable participating in the citywide Journey program.
My hope was that you could help us fine-tune the exhibition theme and storyline so that it reaches wider national audiences, and more specifically, produce a short video that will play for thousands on the media wall at the VIC.
This doesn’t change my interest in having lunch with you.
My hope always is that philosophical differences will never interfere with friendships. I have a great deal of respect for you, CB, and always have, so I will take your advice anytime, however small or large the doses.
Thank you and see you tomorrow.
Regards,
Dana
No sense beating a dead horse, here. Except for the utter pleasure of it, I guess. But, Hackworth decides to repeat the message one more time — hoping to open Ste. Claire’s eyes to the folly of his efforts.
Subject: RE: Woolworth image
From: <CB Hackworth>
Date: Wed, October 09, 2013 3:54 pm
To: “Dana Ste. Claire”Dear Dana,
I really do appreciate the kind comments in your note and will see you tomorrow.
My belief — shared by many others — is that the Civil Rights movement (including the chapter that played out in St. Augustine) is an event of major historical significance.
Your plan to “include” it, even as the focal point, in a “larger” exhibition about African Americans is (whether by accident or intent) inherently diversionary, and I find the whole thing unfortunate because it is a lost opportunity.
I’m very well aware of the wide variety of opinion on the subject of race in St. Augustine, St Johns County and Florida — a large amount which is apathetic at best and unapologetically racist at worst.
Obviously, I don’t think it’s possible for local government to please all its citizens, nor do I think you should even try. No pun intended, but sometimes, right and wrong actually is black and white.
As recently as five years ago, the Civil Rights movement in St. Augustine wasn’t openly discussed. That it’s now at least acknowledged is a sign of some progress, as are the monuments erected here and there. Still, I am unsympathetic when some residents express “fatigue” over the subject.
As I told you the other day, the City is in a unique position to do a great deal of good as the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act approaches. I hate to see that opportunity lost.
That said, I’m free to discuss this or anything else.
Regards, and take care,
CB
Thursday, October 10th comes and goes. Florida Cracker Café sells two more lunches to Ste. Claire and Hackworth — this time, Hackworth pays.
The following day, Hackworth writes a final e-mail to Ste. Claire about the Journey video and exhibit. In great detail, Hackworth spells out the problems with the way the City is going to gloss over rather than articulate accurate accounts of the civil rights movement, directly from the people who lived it, while they are still alive to make their testimony for the benefit of future generations. Ste. Claire never responds.
Crickets.
Subject: Follow Up to Yesterday’s Meeting
From: <CB Hackworth>
Date: Fri, October 11, 2013 8:46 am
To: “Dana Ste. Claire”Dear Dana,
Per our conversation yesterday, here is the link I said I would send you. It includes a 3 1/2 minute description from Dr. Robert Hayling I hope you’ll watch.
It is about the night he was beaten and almost killed at a Klan cross-burning on property where the Hobby Lobby shopping center now is located.
Also of interest is Stetson Kennedy’s newspaper article on the incident, and we’ve been able to identify some of the people who were present.
Bear in mind this was probably the worst, but not the only, attempt made on Dr. Hayling’s life. Several other execution attempts were made, one with shots fired into his house at night which killed his dog and very nearly killed his pregnant wife.
It was, in fact, after that incident that Dr. Hayling moved his family to safety away from St. Augustine, though he himself did not immediately follow.
As you are aware, Andrew Young and I have been producing a follow-up documentary which will be released next year.
“Crossing in St. Augustine” ends with passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but the story clearly did not end. That law was widely ignored throughout the South, including St. Augustine, and after Dr. King and all the TV cameras left town, a great deal of other disturbing events occurred.
Unlike other Civil Rights hotspots, St. Augustine never established the promised bi-racial committee and the consequences remain glaringly and painfully obvious today. Nowhere is it more evident than in the city’s own employment practices.
Former Commissioner Errol Jones openly voiced criticism of city government’s racial practices in “Crossing in St. Augustine” and subsequently was arrested, tried, convicted and voted out of office, leaving St. Augustine and St. Johns County with no African American representation whatsoever.
Ambassador Young — (remarkably, to my way of thinking) — does not hold grudges over past injustices; however, he has become concerned about the present.
You’ve indicated to me that the city plans to send representatives, including Commissioner Leanna Freeman, to Atlanta to visit Ambassador Young and discuss the city’s plans for upcoming “celebrations” related to St. Augustine’s 450th Anniversary.
I’m sure he is willing to do so, and hope we can videotape the meeting, just as we did when John Regan, Errol Jones and Jeremy Marquis visited several years ago.
Most recently, we taped with St. Augustine native Hank Thomas at Pinehurst Cemetery and other locations in St. Augustine and West Augustine, including community meetings with residents of Lincolnville.
Again, as I told you at one of the two lunch meetings we had, I believe it would be surprising and enlightening for commissioners and other city officials to have similar meetings and hear directly from some of the “real people.” If there is ever any such interest, I think it would be an easy matter to set up.
Thank you again for your recent overtures, and for at least listening to the criticism I expressed concerning your planned exhibition, “Journey.”
Under different circumstances, it’s the kind of thing in which I’d love to have been involved, but I honestly feel it misses the mark completely and again must decline your request that I take an active role of some kind.
The year 2014 is the anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, a groundbreaking law perhaps brought about in part because of dramatic events that played out in St. Augustine. Other cities like Birmingham are fully acknowledging (and even embraced) their part in a movement which made life better for all American citizens, but St. Augustine isn’t willing to do that, even now.
Your intention to mount an exhibit which includes the Civil Rights movement only as part of a much broader narrative of the African American experience in St. Augustine throughout history may have been the only way to “sell” any exhibit at all to decision makers, as you suggest, but it certainly has the appearance of obfuscation.
To reiterate what I’ve said several times now, I believe you are missing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to right past wrongs and deal openly with ones that exist in the present day.
Martin Luther King Jr., from a pulpit in St. Augustine, said he hoped to make “this, the oldest city in the nation, the most Democratic city in the nation.” Unfortunately, give or take a few monuments, there has been very little meaningful change since he spoke those words almost 50 years ago.
The problems that exist go far beyond the question of whether or not an exhibition of African American history is flawed or whether or not an anniversary of the Civil Rights movement is given appropriate recognition — although those are all important questions, if not symptoms.
The roots of my family tree run deep in St. Augustine, a city as beautiful today as it was when my ancestors — who happen to have been both black and white — walked these same streets.
I have witnessed a small amount of progress in the last four or five years, but not enough to make me yet believe I will live to see Dr. King’s dream for St. Augustine become more of a reality.
I hope at the very least this better explains why I have to decline to participate in the exhibition “Journey” as either a filmmaker or paid consultant. On the other hand, my opinion, welcome or not, is free — and you, the city manager, mayor or anyone else certainly may contact me anytime you like.
Regards,
CB Hackworth
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