Dateline St. Augustine; Part 2

Palm Sunday March 22nd 1964 [bells ringing] The bells of St. Augustine Florida called citizens and tourists alike to witness the blessing of the ?Shrimp boats?. A colorful annual event in the oldest city in America. Soon to celebrate its 400th anniversary. Thousands of people lined the shore along Bay Street. And along the bridge of Lyons which separates the city from Anastasia Island to the east. To watch a solemn procession file down the long catwalk to the city pier. Where holy water is sprinkled on the passing boats. And as a climax a floral reef in the shape of an anchor is cast in tribute into the water. Bay street is lined with palms. And in this predominantly Catholic city many of the spectators carry in their hands the traditional Palm Sunday fronds from these same trees. And still others following a long tradition display in their lapels crosses

fashion from the palm leaf. Later. I saw a different sort of cross. Uh, this is a cross that's uh, burned by the Ku Klux Klan. There's a cross burned at their meetings as part of the ritual. And the particular cross you're looking at is a burlap Red Cross oh about seven feet high. Um, this one was burned in the area of Dr. Hailing's house, the advisor to the local chap-, uh, Youth Council of the NAACP. This cross was, uh, soaked in kerosene and planted about, oh, 9 o'clock one night. It was burned and we arrived at the scene, oh, maybe within a half an hour after the cross was planted. And by this time the police had kicked it down.

However nobody had seen it. Who had lit it or seen a car in the area and we picked the cross up and brought it back to the office and say within a week. A rash of violence broke out in St. Augustine. Burning a home. shooting into homes, uh, molotov cocktails being thrown at homes, and so forth and also a few beatings. This was a sort of kickoff campaign then, a kind of warning would you say? I believe it, uh, was, uh, a warning at the time the uh, Picketing and the strive for racial equality was in full swing in St. Augustine. What time of year was that? Uh, this was about August I believe. August of last year and since then there have been bombings and burnings and so forth. Most recently I understand, uh, one of the local ministers had his car burned up, is

that correct? This is correct. Uh, someone had pushed, uh, what was believed to be a gasoline filled tire from a car unders, under the gas tank of his car and ignited it. Um, it was a total loss. Was, uh, there an investigation and an ar- arrest? Hmm, ah, partial investigation at least the police said there was one but there were no arrests no suspects in the case of, uh, Dr Hailing's house? I understand that, uh, there was shots a number of them fired into his house. However Have there been any arrests in that case? as usual no. how about the case of the burning of the house? Same answer no. and in the others? No none. As we stand here with many thousands of other people who are observing across the short expanse of water to the city here we see the Catholic procession which has come down the pier.

The priest and acolytes and Others are waiting now for the shrimp boat, which you may be able to hear in the background. right now there are 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 which can be seen all gayly decked in flags. They're proceeding towards the bridge and I assume Will cut in around toward the ceremonial area and the first of the boats is now coming down in front of us here it is a Coast Guard boat which is leading the Marine procession but a Coast Guard boat is now approaching the pier. There are 4 Coast Guard men aboard they salute, remove their hats and a sailor on the pier is about to throw a floral wreath in the shape of an anchor into the water in front of the city yacht pier here at St. Augustine Florida. The priest is

throwing holy water. Blessing the Coast Guard boat as it goes by now the draw of the Bridge of Lions has opened and the shrimp boats are now passing to the north out to sea bearing the wreaths In the shape of an anchor which was cast into the waters here just a few moments ago by uh A young sailor from the United States Navy. the singing continues with the young girls. [Singing] [singing] That was not only singing to be heard in St. Augustine.

A small group of Northern whites and Southern negroes met in the First Baptist Church in the colored part of town [singing] [singing] [singing] [singing] late on Sunday evening a group of New Englanders arrived in St. Augustine

in response to a plea from Dr. Robert Hailing a negro dentist and advisor to the local N-double-ACP Youth Council. Dr. Hailing was one of four Negroes who were as he puts it specially invited guests at a recent local meeting of the Ku Klux Klan. After 14 days he was sufficiently recovered from head and other wounds to be discharged from the hospital. His story is told by an eyewitness will be heard on a later broadcast on Monday following Palm Sunday. Dr. Hayling welcomed his white northern supporters at the First Baptist Church. [indistinct speaking] in whatever manner they can. Reverend mckiss is the state coordinator of ministerial leader of the march on talahassee. He will be interested and i have offered our services to join

On the march on Tallahassee which being conducted by the state NAACP office um for civil rights on Good Friday and we will have to formulize our plans on that. So now while the heads of state are going to stay here and have a meeting after this meeting has adjourned, many of us if you feel so compelled to return to the [indistinct] and start out in some form and fashion with our uh little instruction course on nonviolence. After that we will feel free to go about our various Ways and means but some of us have thought about contacting our religious counterparts in the community. Those with Jewish ties can contact the Jewish community. those with Catholic ties can attempt to establish some means of communication through the catholic community. in other words you're not wearing a label you're not wearing a banner or anything saying Why are you here and what you're doing.

You feel your way as you feel you're in you know enemy territory then you will be a segregationist or at least not committed. But if you're getting somebody that you're talking to and so forth then you be the judge of that. for the next or 2 while we're going through our nonviolence training and so forth the reports that you bring back from the community and we see that you're, the reception you are given and we see and we will know just with direction the movement will take. Plus the ministers here have the wisdom and the forbearance and the Christian background and so forth to really check the lay of the land and we will go forth from there. Dr. Martin Luther King office be advised almost daily as to what's going on here. He is intensely interested in freeing the nation oldest city. We backing up now saying now the whole civil rights movement throughout the country has overlooked on thing that our

nations oldest city, the founding city, is still staunchly segregated or segregated in such a pattern that Nothing is being done to eliminate segragation. in other words other folks downtown will tell you about Negroes only homes, Negroes only jobs Negroes schoolteachers and so forth and so forth. but when you say what else are you doing to improve the plight of the negro? what are you doing about interracial communication. what are you doing about interracial worship? and so forth. We're pleased at this time i guess if you say biracial oh my goodness if you say biracial community, interracial community these are dirty words in other words for the next day or 2 you're just here meeting with you know people, learning our streets and other things and we will maybe consume about an hour or 2 or more of your time. Those are my plans at this time others have other plans of trying to open up avenues of communication. I see Reverend Rawls coming so

in other words [indistinct] like so. I'm sure their commitments will be likewise. I feel free and hope i'm in order in saying that the last meeting Between the negro ministers and the white ministers after about 10 or 15 minutes of the meeting they were told by the white president that they, as far as he was they need not meet again. Well anyway at this time there were no interdenominational or interracial communication between the ministers of the community and this is one of the breakthroughs that we are hoping that we can establish. Because to the average individual it would be common ground for religious leaders to have some communication even in South Africa and many of us would think of South Africa and the apartheid policy in america in the nations oldest city.

In the county jail at this time we have seven persons who were convicted last fall for lie-ins and due to our legal difficulties and so forth our county judge saw fit and had the opportunity and if there was something wrong with the appeals as presented to the court and they reversed it and our county judge had the opportunity to enforce the law so we have a high school senior, we have a college senior and we have one young lady who adopted a 3 month old baby in county jail serving sentences of at least 39 days for lying in last summer. and we had four juveniles to serve six months and we have the mother of one of those juveniles singleton in the back who did an admirable job not bowing down to our juvenile judge's wishes of signing their children's birth rights away by saying that they would not picket or demonstrate or participate at any racial demonstration until they were at least 21 years of age and would observe a 9 or

9:30 curfew and So forth and so forth. Then Dr. Hayling introduced the coordinator of the New England group. Reverend William England associate chaplain at Boston University. Yeah. We are very glad to be here. We are here we feel because of the SDLC in Dr. Vivian in Atlanta felt that you all could use us. We want to be at your disposal. Doctor Mudge and doctor Ensworth and our, I've just gave one a doctors degree, and That all of us and students included I'm sure want to do everything we can. This is a in earnest We want to be used the way you want us to we don't have any plan or program of our own. We are not coming down to tell the people of St.

Augustine how to run their business. We're coming down to help the of st augustine who have asked us to come. So we're happy to be, maybe some of my colleagues would like to say something. i'm not a preacher i'm a chaplain. from western Massachusetts chaplain Richard Unsworth of Smith and Dr. Lewis Mudge Chaplin of Amherst also made brief statements. Chaplin Unsworth we're we're all here I think with one basic feeling and that is no matter what our color no matter where we live we all have the right to associate with who we will when and where we will if we live in a democracy. I get irritated when somebody says [indistinct] because that person has decided that their color and my color don't go together. human beings go together in an area [indistinct]

[indistinct] We're not coming to St Augustine with any self righteousness saying we've solved our problems where we come from, we know we haven't we're a long long way from solving our problems. but I regard St Augustine as another american city. i think i'm first an american and only second, maybe third a new englander. [indistinct] [indistinct] [laughter] I've lived that long. I regard st. Augustine as as much my Home as the town i live in. [indistinct] to see if some way you and i together all of us can make our own home a better more fit place for human beings to live a human life. Far as

We were concerned at Amhearst when we heard about this venture. we thought of it very much in harmony with what has already been said as a matter of voting with our bodies with our feet in the colleges and universities we do really well really get it but there does come a time where we commit ourselves to something by being physically present bringing ourselves [indistinct] and i would like to underline that simple matter of being with human beings living together. the simple fact that [indistinct] that obvious physical fact is perhaps more important than all the things that I or anyone else could say about this you're here and we aim to be with you for a few days at least.

[indistinct] [indistinct] OK. Mrs. Casey. Yeah what [indistinct] There's 9 3 0 2 6. Since his house was fired upon killing Dr. Haylings dog and narrowly missing his wife and two small daughters The dentist has sent his family out of town and has moved into his office on Bridge Street. there on Sunday evening young college student volunteers from the north were working with Glen Murray executive officer of the Youth Council NAACP Arranging accommodations among members of the Negro community for the rest of the visitors expected from New England. That's right jimmy knows where key street is. OK I was going to go.

[indistinct] Murray a youthful and energetic negro from White Plains New York holds what he calls a white collar job in a local factory. After Dr. Hayling took it over. The picketing started and along with the picketing we start having arrests. Among the first group of children arrested were four children under the ages of 18. you say children? Pickets all members of the youth council. Very true. We have 4 youth Council members arrested who were under 18 both 2 high school seniors and I believe 2 in the eleventh grade. These all boys? 2 girls and 2 boys. And why were they arrested? According to the for participating in a sit in demonstration at St. George pharmacy. one of one of the laws here in the end is that in St. Augustine is that a

well they were arrested under a Florida Code trespassing after warning. It states that if you have been in a place and asked to leave and then return they arrest you for trespassing. These children have not been in the place before that although another group had been in. They were arrested and charged with trespassing after warning but thrown in a county jail. With common criminals where they were detained for about a month. They were then shipped out the boys to a Mariana training school for boys and to uh the girls to a training school down near Ocala Florida. They were convicted? they were convicted and word isn't conviction that they used. I'm trying to think any way they wind up being detained in the correctional schools for a period of six months before we were able to get

them released for trespassing. And they have been released now about a month. And that was the among the group of the first arrests the picketting continued uh And We had another group picked up in jail. For zigzagging and this was supposedly walking a picket line and not walking in a straight direction. Maybe they step six inches out a line of whatever it was. They have pretty strict rules in St Augustine. Yeah they make them as they go. [laughter] And this is the truth. Believe it or not they make them as they go. And what happened this instance? they were put in jail and released on. How many? sex? I think there were 4. age? On that age and all of them were in the vicinity of 18 and 19 and they were

released and they are still they were tried convicted and still uh On appeal so far we haven't had any answer from that appeal. I understand when of that there was some object some objection by some of the people who were picketed that the signs were not appropriately worded and we got and I didn't even remember what the sign said. some of the signs said they claim that your signs were inflammatory. Well inflammatory in a way of speaking only if I was white and they say they were inflammatory such as if Cubans and Mexicans that can eat here why can't I or if my dollar is good at the drug counter why not at the lunch counter. Segregation must die. We want freedom we will walk outside until we can walk inside with dignity. And if

this is inflammatory then I guess I must call them inflammatory. Day of in the morning I scuse me on Labor Day we had a rally in the old slave market in St. Augustine. That's right the center of town it's the square and. right it's right in the center of town. What a pretty place part of the plaza too isn't yes there was shops sort of like in I think our New Englanders listening would call it a small version of the village green. It would be comparable to a village green. It's called the city park of the town plaza and we had tried for several days to get a permit to hold a public rally which is which in accordance with the city ordinance and we were either refused flatly or shuffled from official to official. The old I army special pass the buck and we weren't granted permit so we went ahead and had the rally anyway

and as a rally was going on it had been in progress about 45 minutes. Policemen start converging on the place with dogs and guns and the rest of paraphernalia and it was not a loud speakers blaring break up the rally and go home. And finally they claimed that they said everybody was under arrest. They called it off 27 people to jail. That particular time and it may be noted revenue Banks was one of the most more outspoken. Now to a segregationist in the city was struck by a deputy sheriff Everett Haney. Over the eye with a cop arrived and he hadn't done anything. What would you explain what a cow yes a cow brought as a little cylinder or about a foot and a half long it's charged with a high powered battery and it gives you an electric shock when it's

stuck to you which has been described as strong enough to make an elephant jump ribbon Eubanks a negroid lighted here in our revenue banks as a negro member of the adult chapter of the NAACP and he was attending a rally that particular day. You also mentioned in that there were dogs involved. We've seen a number of dogs in police cars here in fact they were they were attending the blessing of the shrimp boats which was about one thirty this afternoon there were two cars parked there right next to the river and on each police car it was a big police dog. At that time they had just brought the dogs and the dogs were inadequately trained and for this reason I believe they did not use any dogs however I don't doubt that they wouldn't hesitate to use of having you

know sensor dogs have been trained to do the violent nature of the said city and that so many incidents of violence all the demonstrations have had to be temporarily called off a slowdown as a result we have no use of dogs but I might imagine that when they were training the dogs they had two dummies. It's training aids. One was black and one was white and the dogs were taught to attack the black dummies. And to leave the white dummies alone so you can actually draw your own inferences to what they were intended for.