Civil Rights & Saint Augustine

It amazes me that, at my age (don't ask how old I am!) that I am still learning every day. Just when I think my head could not possibly hold any more knowledge, something new comes along. I love to learn, for a lot of reasons. It keeps me humble and reminds me that I do not have all the answers. It makes life more interesting to find yourself in awe of something today that you did not know yesterday. And, every new thing I learn brings me closer to the God of Creation, who offers all of this knowledge to us, if we are willing open our heats and our minds to new ways of thinking and living.

This week, I am in St. Augustine for a civil rights preaching pilgrimage. I went on a pilgrimage last year to Birmingham, Montgomery, Selma and Atlanta, which was life changing for me. I learned amazing stories of people who endured horrific treatment and violence even as they fought a non-violent fight for change. These were stories that I never heard before, like the bombing of the 16th St. Baptist Church in Birmingham where four children died, the shooting of a white woman who had come down south to help out with the Selma March, who was murdered while she was driving two black men back from Montgomery to Selma, and the bravery of young people who marched in the Children's Crusades. 

This week I am learning about the horrors of the slave trade here in St Augustine, but also about the bravery of many black and white people here during the civil rights movement. One of those stories is the story of the Monson Motor Lodge pool. Have you ever heard it? It is a new learning to me.

The Monson Motor Lodge was a segregated motel with an attached restaurant and a waterfront pool. In the spring of 1964, Robert Hayling, a prominent St. Augustine Civil Rights Activist working with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, invited Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to visit St. Augustine. On June 11, 1964, Dr. King attempted to dine at the Monson Motor Lodge's restaurant. He was refused service and later arrested on the Monson's front steps when he refused to leave. King was taken to the St. Augustine Jail, where he wrote a "Letter from the Saint Augustine Jail" to his friend, Rabbi Israel S. Dresner, encouraging rabbis to come to Saint Augustine and take part in the movement.

A week after King's arrest, on June 18, 1964, another major protest occurred at the Monson. A group of rabbis, led by Rabbi Dresner, held an open-air prayer in the Monson's parking lot. At about the same time, a group of black and white activists jumped into the Monson swimming pool in defiance of segregation ordinances. The owner responded by pouring muriatic acid into the water to drive the "wade in" protestors out. Photographs of this action, and of a police officer jumping into the pool to arrest the young activists, were broadcast around the world and became some of the most famous images of the Civil Rights Movement. Hundreds of bystanders at the protest were taken into custody alongside the swim-in participants and the group of rabbis (notably, this marked the largest mass arrest of rabbis in American history).