Abstract
Although the demography and economy of Florida in the mid-twentieth century diverged sharply from the rest of the former Confederacy, the political elite of the state resisted the efforts of desegregation about as firmly as the leadership of the rest of the South did, though perhaps more subtly. What made Florida so singular was its appeal to tourists and migrants, an openness that also made the state more vulnerable to outside scrutiny and pressure than more isolated states in the region. That is why, in 1964, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference under Martin Luther King, Jr picked St Augustine to highlight the persistence of legally enforced white supremacy, when the city sought to celebrate the 400th anniversary of its founding. As in Birmingham, as in Selma, the SCLC chose wisely, because the vehemence of local white leadership exposed so dramatically the violence and cruelty that permeated Jim Crow. The crisis attracted outside attorneys like Alvin J. Bronstein to protect the rights of protestors and, even more importantly, drew in the Miami-based Tobias Simon, a key lawyer for progressive causes in the state. The conflict educated a federal judge named Bryan Simpson, whose sympathies the Freedom Struggle achieved in enlisting. Whitfield's article shows that the crisis in St Augustine that spring and summer served as the inescapable backdrop for the passage of the Civil Rights Act (1964) that changed the South, and therefore the nation.