America celebrating anniversary in path to equality
ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. - America is celebrating a proud and important anniversary in the path to equality.
60 years ago, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, which bans discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
The decisive battle for the landmark act took place in Florida. St. Augustine was the epicenter of the freedom struggle in the summer of 1964, and the city now displays a monument to the foot soldiers of the movement in a downtown square. And many of the foot soldiers returned to St Augustine to celebrate what they accomplished 60 years ago.
"This one really did change America and inspire the world," said historian David Nolan. "And it really made our country better."
In 1963, the civil rights movement took off in Birmingham, Alabama.
Segregationist police boss Bull Connor burned non-violent students with fire hoses and attacked them with police dogs, then the Klan killed four little girls by bombing 16th Street Baptist Church.
(Photo by Warren Leffler/Underwood Archives/Getty Images)
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That shocked our nation's conscience and drove Congress to craft a civil rights bill to ban racial discrimination. But that legislation then stalled in the U.S. Senate with a segregationist filibuster. It took another battle to break the filibuster & pass it through Congress, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. decided to lead that battle in St. Augustine. It was the old Spanish City that freed slaves who escaped from the British colonies and it was planning a 400th anniversary celebration as a city when King and others decided to take their stand.
"Yes, because they were going to celebrate the 400th birthday on an all-white basis," Hayling noted.
In 1964, peaceful civil rights protestors faced a blaze of bullets and firebombs in what Dr. King called America's most lawless city. Some were beaten and tortured by the Ku Klux Klan. 60 years ago, King, his right-hand man Andrew Young, and St. Augustine dentist Robert Hayling led a peaceful resistance that compelled federal lawmakers to pass the Civil Rights Act without firing a shot or throwing a fist.
King was arrested. His top Lieutenant Andrew Young was beaten, and black and white civil rights activists got splashed with acid in a motel pool.
That shocked the nation's conscience again & broke the filibuster of the Civil Rights Act. Congress passed and sent it to President Johnson who signed it into law on July 2, 1964.
"For us to come together it means so much," said 101-year-old Cora Tyson. She hosted and cooked for Dr. King and other civil rights activists 60 years ago, and cooked and served them food again for an anniversary reception. "It’s hard to put it into words, just knowing we’re able to come back together and that people still remember and care about us," she noted. "It’s so gratifying and overwhelming."