Reflections on the St. Augustine Struggle

Gwendolyn Duncan contacted the local St. Johns County news desk at Historic City News and asked that we report on the following speech from one of the unsung heroes of the Civil Rights Movement, a Canadian named Fred Martin.

Gwendolyn Duncan, is the President of The 40th Anniversary to Commemorate the Civil Rights Demonstrations, Inc.

These words were presented March 19, 2010, at the downtown bandstand in St. Augustine’s Plaza de la Constitucion by Mr. Martin, himself.

To learn more about The 40th ACCORD, visit their website at www.accordfreedomtrail.org

I would like to begin by thanking Mrs. Duncan, Dr. Hayling, and the many people of the ACCORD for their kind welcome. Mrs. Duncan has been responsible, as many of you know, for leading the effort to preserve the history of the civil rights movement in St. Augustine and the crucial role it played in the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

I think it is fair to say that if it were not for Dr. Hayling that movement may not have ever happened. Certainly, it would not have succeeded to the extent it did without his leadership, commitment, and courage. He was my mentor, my guide, and my protector while I was here, and for that I thank him.

In wandering about this beautiful historic city for the past few days, I have been struck by how much has changed since I was here in 1964. St. Augustine has seen a lot of development. My impression today is of a bustling tourism center making the most of its long history. But, while being struck by the beauty of the present, my thoughts have been dragged back to a less happy period in its history—the long, hot, terrifying, and inspiring summer of 1964.

At that time, planning was underway to celebrate the historical significance of its 400th Anniversary as America’s Oldest City. And that summer the city made history, not for the events of the past, but for the strength its Black Citizens showed in their commitment to a different future.

Their vision was of a city where the freedom and equality promised by Abraham Lincoln in 1863 would be practiced in life. Because the hard truth of their lives was that in 1964, freedom still had not moved from a promise on paper to a practice in everyday life.

As hard as it is for us to believe today, if we had gathered here like this less than 50 years ago, most of us would not be able to go to the nearest restaurant and eat.

Most of us would not have been able to go to the nearest hotel and find a place to sleep.

And, most of us would not even be able to go to the nearest beach and have a swim.

That was the situation in a country Dr. Hayling, as a Lieutenant in the United States Air Force, had signed up to die for. And that was the situation that when he came back as a civilian, he and other fed up citizens of St. Augustine decided they had to change.

And, they set out to change it. The civil rights movement they began led a long and costly fight for change through 1963 and into the early winter of 1964. They suffered intimidation, beatings, burnings, and arrests. But, for all that, they had not received an expression of willingness to structure an effective Bi-racial Commission to address the problems. By, February of 1964, after months of struggle, the local civil rights movement was near exhaustion. Some were ready to quite—some, but not all.

On this very day, 46 years ago, on March 19, 1964, Dr. Hayling, Henry Twine, Goldie Eubanks, and a few co-workers decided that the people here had walked too far to walk away now. But to reach their goal, they had to take their message beyond the powers of the city to the people of the nation.

They knew that nation’s attention would come if Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would come. And they knew he was a short drive away at a meeting of his Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Orlando. So, the next day they went to Orlando to present their case to Dr. King.

Their case was simple and direct:
1. The movement in St. Augustine needed his help to keep their struggle for desegregation and equal rights alive.
2. At that very moment, a civil rights bill designed to protect in the courts the rights they sought in the streets was stalled in the United States Senate; and
3. With his help, the people of St. Augustine would lead the fight to get that bill passed into law and bring a new era to America.

The good news for history is that Dr. Hayling was convincing and Dr. King decided that, exhausted as they were from Birmingham, he had to get his team behind the movement in St. Augustine. And to start that effort he sent one of his top aides, Hosea Williams.

It is my great sorrow that Hosea is not with us today. He was the leading push inside SCLC for action in St. Augustine. He was a good man that fought the good fight until the day he died. There was no quit in him. And there was no saying “no” to him. I couldn’t.

I was set to go to Mississippi to work on the 1964 summer voter registration project when Hosea called me up and said “Fred, you don’t need to go to no Mississippi. You need to go to St. Augustine. That’s where the people are going to make history made this summer.”

And, as much as I ever hated to agree with Hosea on anything, I think he was right.

The people of St. Augustine really did make history during summer of 1964. The stage had been set by the protests throughout the south in 1963. In Montgomery, in Nashville, in Birmingham people marched, students sat in, and thousands went to jail.
This waive of civil unrest was focused on Washington. The time of arbitrary exclusion had to end. People wanted the law to guarantee that color would not decide where they could eat, sleep, live, or work. By 1963 Black people across America had waited long enough.

From the streets of the South they were sending a clear and unambiguous signal—-“We’re not waiting any more. We have waited 100 years and that is too long. The time is now.” That signal was heard in Washington. By early in 1964 a Civil Rights Bill had been drafted and put before the Senate. And then the talking started: the age-old southern Senators strategy of the filibuster. If a Bill is going to bring change, talk it to death; and that was what they set out to try.

Does this strategy sound familiar to anyone here today? I thought so. But, when the southern Senators thought they could derail the Bill with their talking, they missed a critical new factor. They didn’t realize that as committed as they were to talking the bill to death that the people of St. Augustine were even more committed to walking that bill into life. The more the people in Washington talked, the more the people here walked.

They walked through the streets of Lincolnville

They walked two by two in a long slow chain that surrounded the Old Slave Market

And they walked at night with nothing to protect them but their songs and prayers.

Those are sights and sounds I can never forget. The dim light of a few odd street lights; creating more shadow than substance. The night; quiet except for the crunch of shoe leather from hundreds of feet. Walking! And then, the slow sound of “I love everybody, I love everybody, I love everybody in my heart…” And with that powerful anthem they walked through the beatings, through the billy clubs, through black jacks and baseball bats.

They filled the paddy wagons, they filled jail cells, and they filled the hospital. But they did not stop. And at the end of June, they were still walking when the Senate finally gave up talking. The Bill passed. And on July 2, 1964 President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law.

The people of St. Augustine had done it. They had been possessed by a powerful faith and a hope for the future. And they put their bodies on the line to achieve it. Their victory for their faith in the justice of their cause, their hope in a better tomorrow, their courage in facing the ancient enemy of fear, and their commitment to keep on marching toward that day.

That was the message of the Movement’s hymn — “We Shall Overcome”

The Civil Rights Act was not the end of the road. We had gained the right to eat in the local restaurants, but in many places Black people were still denied the most basic right of citizenry –the right to vote. And so, the pressure continued, in St. Augustine, in Selma, and in countless other communities across America. From all this suffering and effort came the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

In 1965, the legal framework was finally in place to protect what Lincoln had promised in 1863. It had been a long and costly struggle. We mark the battlefields where so many died to secure so that the Constitution could be amended to ban slavery. We mark those sites not because of who won or lost that battle, but because they ultimately contributed to the life, liberty, and equal justice that America holds so dearly. And this is the challenge to St. Augustine. Here is where the great struggle took place that gained passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and with it the legal protection of freedom and equal justice for millions of Americans. That struggle was carried by the courage and commitment of citizens of this city. Where are the signs declaring St. Augustine’s pivotal role in American history? Where is the pride that, regardless of who was on what side, this was the place that finally made it happen? To me, that is the proudest moment in St. Augustine’s history. It is a monument to the courage of its people and the gift it gave America.

That is the great gift the people of St. Augustine gave me — a gift that changed my life. The gift of knowing that change can come against impossible odds; that people can overcome when they have faith in their cause, and when they have hope for their future, and when they will not be turned around.

Thank you, people of St. Augustine for that great gift. And thank you Mrs. Duncan, Dr. Hayling, and others that made this day possible. Thank you!

©2010 The 40th Anniversary to Commemorate the Civil Rights Demonstrations, Inc., used with permission by Historic City News