The Whites Are at It Again pol
In June 1964, James Brock dumped acid into the water at the Monson Motor Lodge in St. Augustine, Fla. He was trying to disrupt swimmers who were protesting the hotel's whites-only policy. Bettmann/Corbis hide caption
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In June 1964, James Brock dumped acid into the h2o at the Monson Motor Society in St. Augustine, Fla. He was trying to disrupt swimmers who were protesting the hotel'due south whites-simply policy.
Bettmann/Corbis
On June 18, 1964, black and white protesters jumped into the whites-but pool at the Monson Motor Lodge in St. Augustine, Fla. In an effort to strength them out, the owner of the hotel poured acrid into the pool.
Martin Luther Male monarch Jr. had planned the sit-in during the St. Augustine Movement, a part of the larger civil rights movement. The protest — and the possessor's acidic response — is largely forgotten today, just information technology played a role in the passing of the Ceremonious Rights Act, at present celebrating its 50th ceremony.
J.T. Johnson, now 76, and Al Lingo, 78, were ii of the protesters in the pool that day. On a visit to StoryCorps in Atlanta, the pair recalled the hotel owner, James Brock, "losing information technology."
"Everybody was kind of caught off guard," J.T. says.
"The girls, they were most frightened, and nosotros moved to the heart of the pool," Al says.
"I tried to calm the gang down. I knew that there was likewise much h2o for that acid to practice anything," J.T. says. "When they drug us out in bathing suits and they carried us out to the jail, they wouldn't feed me because they said I didn't have on any clothes. I said, 'Well, that's the fashion you locked me up!'
"But all of the news media were there, because somehow I guess they'd gotten word that something was going to happen at that pool that day. And I remember that's when President [Lyndon B.] Johnson got the message."
On a visit to StoryCorps in Atlanta, J.T. Johnson (left) and Al Lingo recalled protesting a whites-simply pool policy at a Florida hotel in 1964. StoryCorps hide caption
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StoryCorps
On a visit to StoryCorps in Atlanta, J.T. Johnson (left) and Al Lingo recalled protesting a whites-only pool policy at a Florida hotel in 1964.
StoryCorps
The following day, the Civil Rights Act was approved, after an 83-solar day delay in the U.South. Senate.
"That had not happened before in this country, that some human being is pouring acrid on people in the swimming puddle," J.T. says. "I'm not then sure the Civil Rights Act would have been passed had [there] not been a St. Augustine. It was a milestone. We was young, and nosotros idea we'd done something — and nosotros had."
J.T. went back to St. Augustine twoscore years later, he tells Al. By then, the Monson Motor Lodge had been replaced with a Hilton Hotel.
"I sabbatum and talked with the manager. I said to him that, 'You know, I can't stay in this hotel. You don't have any African-Americans working here,' " J.T. recalls.
"He said, 'Well, I promise yous that next time you come downwards here it'll be different.' He immediately got busy," J.T. continues. "But he was one of the few people in St. Augustine, I recall, that did some of the things that we had been talking about."
"So, to get dorsum to St. Augustine, and information technology'due south still somewhat the same — now, that does brand me feel bad. The lifting is still kind of heavy, but I'll go along to piece of work as hard equally I can, equally long as I live," J.T. says. "I won't ever cease, and I won't ever give up."
Audio produced for Morning Edition by Jasmyn Belcher Morris.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2014/06/13/321380585/remembering-a-civil-rights-swim-in-it-was-a-milestone