The photo is an icon. It appeared on the cover of major newspapers around the world on June 19, 1964, reflecting the incident of the previous afternoon. It wasn’t just any day. Hours later, the US Congress finally had to vote on the Civil Rights Act.
From that moment on, the image became a great summary of the fight against segregation, transforming an incident in a hotel in the South, in Florida, into a fundamental milestone in the fight for racial equality.
That photo is much more than the record of an irrational act, the testimony of the actions of an overwhelmed man. It shows the state of the situation, the air of the times: there is all the rage, all the hostility, all the fear of the segregationists. And there is also the faith, determination and even the innocence of those who protested, of those who fought for integration.
A man in a light coat, striped tie, pants above the navel pours the contents of a plastic drum into a swimming pool with many people inside. The liquid spreads, comes out wildly from the container while the man waves his arm with energetic violence. Emotions intermingle in his gestures: there is fury, concentration, some indignation, quite a bit of enjoyment.
There are several people in the water. Mostly young. Men and women. Black and white. From the front you see a girl with a stunning afro hairstyle. Some hug each other, others look with embarrassment.
The boogeyman is clearly not the poolman, he is not trying to improve the PH of the water, nor make it more crystal clear. We know his name. It’s James Brock, the owner of the Monson Motor Lodge, the hotel that owns the pool. And what he throws in the pool, on the swimmers It’s muriatic acid.
On June 18, 1964, sixty years ago, the city of St. Augustine woke up in convulsion. Several days ago, the leaders of the civil rights movement, led by Martin Luther King, had chosen her to continue their fight. At first it didn’t seem like a right decision: a small, remote, radicalized city. The population was so extremist, integration seemed so impossible in that place, that one analyst said: “In St. Augustine, in those years, there were only two political positions: the ultra-right and the mega-ultra-right. Nothing else”.
It had all started a week before. Martin Luther King, along with other fellow activists for equal rights, had entered the dining room of the Monson Motor Lodge, the hotel located in St. Augustine and run by James Brock.
Over time it was understood that it was not a casual visit, that the entourage did not get hungry and entered the first place they found. King wanted to set a precedent and break the racial barrier. It was one of the many restaurants located in the South of the United States that were only for whites. MLK arrived as if he didn’t know and demanded to be attended to. They kicked him out but he refused to leave. The police had to come to evict him. They had a hard time arresting him but they managed it.
MLK had chosen St. Augustine as the new ground in which to amplify his nonviolent campaign to combat racism. It wasn’t an obvious choice. It was a city that used to go unnoticed, small, remote. However, he managed to convince the rest of his movement that it was the ideal place to show citizens and authorities how the Ku Klux Klan acted. He also wanted it to be seen that there was racism not only in areas of Mississippi; It was a widespread evil. KKK men beat black men on a weekly basis. They were seriously injured, some even appeared dead; but justice did not intervene. In addition to the lack of integration, there was a climate of permanent violence there. Civil rights groups had stated that: “The city is a segregationist super bomb with a very short fuse.”
There was one more factor: it was a city whose main income came from tourism and being on the front page of the mainstream media for racial problems did not suit it. When he entered the restaurant, MLK knew that that noon he would not eat and that a few minutes later he would be sitting in a cell full of dirt. He didn’t care.
It had happened before. The campaign in the city had begun on Easter Sunday. A large group of people tried to have lunch in the hotel restaurant but ended up detained. Among them were the mother of the governor of Massachusetts and the wife of a bishop of the Episcopal church. That determined that the incident had repercussions. And it brought a lot of people to St. Augustine. Journalists, civil rights protesters and, of course, members of the KKK from other states. A few weeks later there were sit-ins in front of the hotel to continue making the situation visible. Meanwhile, racist attack groups were shooting black people from moving cars or ambushing them in the streets and They beat them with bicycle chains, sticks and metal bars.
June 11 was the day that Martin Luther King wanted to enter, along with other people, the Monson Motor Lodge. James Brock, the owner, intercepted him at the entrance and with good manners informed him something that MLK already knew: the restaurant and the hotel were not integrated. “Unfortunately, I can’t let you in,” he said, and clarified that the only men of color who could enter were those who were part of the service staff of the white diners (but they ate in a separate room). MLK, without losing his calm and without raising his voice, after preaching for a while, told him that there was no problem, that he would wait there until he could enter the place. And, along with his companions, he sat at the entrance of the restaurant. The sit-in drove Brock crazy and he began shouting that “his sit-ins” were driving away customers and giving him bad press. I was beginning to understand.
MLK had discovered in his previous experiences, mainly in Alabama, that beyond great speeches, negotiations and appearances in the media, what really impacted society, what made an impression and could generate change, were the images of the confrontations. , when groups of blacks and whites protesting peacefully They were beaten or dragged by police to be arrested. They were people who wanted to go to a public place to eat or go to a public school or go to the bathroom or sit in the same seats as others on public transportation. With those images, impressive graphic syntheses, the best dissemination for the cause was achieved.
His men instructed the inhabitants of the towns and cities in which they operated not to react, They trained non-violent responses. MLK was convinced that violence was not the way, that aggressive reactions only They reinforced the excuses of the racists.
Brock called the police to evict MLK. He ended up in prison on charges of intrusion, conspiracy and resisting authority. He refused to post bail for crimes he had not committed. And he was sent to federal prison. Since his confinement he summoned several rabbis. 17 of them came to protest. They were all arrested: That was the largest number of imprisoned rabbis in the history of the United States. Another piece of news that made it to the front pages of the newspapers.
In parallel with MLK’s prison and the protests of his followers and partners in militancy to end racism, other very relevant events occurred. In Congress the legislators they filibustered (from the English term fillibuster) the law, that is, with very long speeches and other chicanery, they prevented it from being addressed and postponed the decision on the issue. That tactic had been going on for 75 days. At the same time, the supremacists continued to attack people of color every chance they could and broke down the buildings of those businesses that admitted them.
On June 18, 1964, with MLK already free and monitoring a few meters away, a group of protesters tried to enter the hotel and its restaurant. Brock himself came out to stop him. He repeated the speech of non-integration and commercial danger for the Monson Motor Lodge. But while he was arguing with those who were blocking the access to the hotel, screams began to be heard from the pool. Brock came running and couldn’t believe what he saw. Inside the water there were black men and women along with other whites. The hotel owner started shouting, giving orders. He demanded that they leave. Two of the white men brandished the keys to the rooms they had rented hours before: “We are passengers of the hotel and these are our guests”, they said. At this point, Brock was no longer listening. He came running with a 7 and a half liter drum of muriatic acid. He began to desperately pour the liquid into the sink. He gave great shakes and the acid fell on the bathers. Brock yelled that he was cleaning the pool. And when someone asked him to stop he stated: “I’m going to burn them all.” His promise was justified: muriatic acid is a corrosive chemical which is used to clean pools. It must be diluted in water and its use must be careful because otherwise it can cause, among other things, enormous damage to the skin. Brock threw it on the protesters.
There were many journalists there, alerted by civil rights organizations. There were television cameras and photojournalists who kept shooting their cameras. This time instead of a sit-down (sit in), MLK had organized a dive (dive in). In a few minutes the police arrived. The officers ordered bathers to leave the pool. They were waiting for them with handcuffs in their hands. When they refused, one of them took off his shoes and, dressed, jumped into the water. Little by little they managed to get them out. Again, everyone was arrested.
Some of the town’s residents who had known Brock before maintained that the hotelier did not distinguish himself as one of the most racist residents of St. Augustine. It only represented the average of the population. Brock, some time later, to justify his actions, said: “If the hotel became integrated we were going to have at most one black passenger per month, and the KKK would burn the facilities every three days. It was no business for anyone.” That explanation was his attempt (vain, banal) to camouflage his racism.
The next day, along with the spread of the new protest designed by Martin Luther King, the US Congress finally discussed the Civil Rights Act that President Lyndon Johnson would promulgate two weeks later. It prohibited discrimination based on race, color, sex, religion and nationality. The income to schools, restaurants, hotels and others had to be integrated. The same thing happened with jobs.
The hotel and its restaurant became integrated. In the following days it was the target of dozens of attacks by the Ku Klux Klan. Firebombs, threats to guests, physical attacks on diners. Brock once again converted his hotel, with the excuse of economic losses, into a non-integrated site. He did not last long and had to comply with the law.
He had been defeated by a few bathers.
