Guest Column: Thankful at Thanksgiving 2025

Ed Slavin
St Augustine, FL

Thankful at Thanksgiving, we look back into the past and look forward to our future.

80 years ago, America defeated Japanese, German and Italian fascists. On D-Day, June 6, 1944, my Father and the 82nd Airborne Division helped liberate the first French town from the Nazis, before the sun even rose that day.

Thomas Paine wrote in 1776, “THESE are the times that try men’s souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”

460 years ago, in 1565, St Augustine’s diverse, polyglot Spanish, African and Native American residents enjoyed America’s first Thanksgiving; feted by the Timucuans, long before Plymouth.  As Catholic priest and University of Florida historian Dr. Michael Gannon wrote, “St Augustine was already up for urban renewal.”

We’re grateful for our of the Sisters of St Joseph, who were unlawfully ordered arrested by the Governor of Florida for teaching blacks to read.  We’re grateful to the Civil Rights Foot Soldiers, one thousand of whom were illegally arrested for civil rights protests, and thankful to US District Court Judge Bryan Simpson, for dismissing all of the cases against them: civil rights lawyers led by William Kuntsler won their cases. 

St Augustine survived genocide, wars, arson, slavery,  segregation, malaria, yellow fever, COVID and other pandemics. Now, plagued by over-development, the Oldest European- founded City in America, just past our 460th birthday, faces the future.

What’s our legacy?  How do we preserve and protect God’s country from ocean level rise, global warming, excessive traffic and over-development?   You tell me. Meanwhile, we have roads clogged with traffic, no transit system and problems caused by over-development. 

Seven times the people of St Johns County rejected proposed sales tax increases.  We, the People, have spoken.

Our economy is based on tourism, but we offer little to tourists in the way of historic and environmental interpretation. The National Trust for Historic Preservation’s 2004 study found that environmental and historic tourists spend twice as much and twice as long. 

We are thankful that our City’s 460th anniversary and Fort Mose revival helped spread greater understanding, and promoted healing.  Our Spanish, English, French, Native American, African-American, Menorcan, Greek, Italian, Jewish, Gay, Civil War and Civil Rights histories must be told better, with National Park Service interpretation.  We will be thankful when Congress enacts the St Augustine National Historical Park and National Seashore first proposed by Mayor Walter Fraser in 1939.

In 1777, some 700 surviving Menorcan settlers escaped the British New Smyrna colony, “voting with their feet”, walking 60-miless to St Augustine.  We’re thankful for their courage and persistence in keeping their history, culture and cuisine alive.

In 1865, freed African-American slaves were establishing Lincolnville (Little Africa), the first community established by freed slaves.  We’re thankful for the African-Americans here and looking forward to their full integration into our economy and political life.

In 1916, Congress created the National Park Service.  Our 400 national parks have been called “America’s Best Idea” and we are thankful for the National Park Service presence in our community.  We look forward to expanding, protecting what we love for your grandchildren and their grandchildren, and protecting our communities, wetlands, beaches, forests, and you from climate change calamity.  Thanks to US Rep. Randy Fine for seeing on the need for new Florida National Parks — we need more parks and less pork. 

In 1964, St Augustine residents and visitors helped expose the truth of Jim Crow segregation, not resting until President Lyndon Johnson broke a US Senate filibuster and won adoption of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, a model for laws passed around the nation and the globe, expanded to cover new protected classes, including Gays, Lesbians, Bisexual and Transgender (GLBT) people, as well as employee “whistleblowers,” or “ethical resisters.

We are thankful for all who have stood up for truth, justice, and equality.  Many like Dr. Robert S. Hayling, D.D.S., the St Augustine Four, the St Augustine Movement, Dr. Franklin Kameny, and US Reps. Don Edwards and Fr. Robert Drinan, S.J., are not yet household words, but may be when NPS co-sponsors a National Civil Rights Museum here.

We’re thankful that civil rights laws inexorably led to the Supreme Court’s landmark Gay marriage decision in June 2015. We’re thankful for all the whistleblowers who report wrongdoing, starting with A. Ernest Fitzgerald, the Pentagon cost analyst who testified truthfully about C-5A airplane cost overruns, leading to his landmark Supreme Court victory after Richard Nixon fired him for not being a “team player,” management argot for someone considered too honest. As African-American poet Langston Hughes wrote, “Let America be America again.”

We elected retired federal lawman Ben Rich, Sr. as County Commissioner. We elected St Augustine Mayor Nancy Shaver.  We elected Krista Keating-Joseph and Ann Taylor as County Commissioners. We have elected Jeanne Moeller, Sandy Flowers, and other reformers, Yes, we did! We are thankful for these and other triumphs of the human spirit. We are thankful for leaders who listen to people, and for their wit, energy, and spirit. We need more like them. Courage. As Thomas Jefferson said, “the ground of liberty is to be gained by inches.”