St. Augustine — Colonial City to Civil Rights
Lincolnville and St. Paul AME Church
Listen at the stop, then read the transcript and follow the sources behind the story.
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Transcript
Lincolnville was founded after the Civil War by freed Black residents and became a center of African American life in St. Augustine. Churches, homes and businesses created community autonomy in the face of segregation.
In 1964, St. Augustine became a major civil-rights battleground. Local activists, including young people, challenged segregated public facilities and businesses. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference joined the campaign, and Martin Luther King Jr. came to the city.
Protests were met by arrests and white segregationist violence. Images from St. Augustine — including confrontations around segregated swimming facilities and restaurants — circulated nationally during debate over civil-rights legislation.
The campaign was not the sole cause of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which emerged from years of organizing and federal politics across the country. But St. Augustine contributed vivid evidence of why national enforcement was necessary. President Lyndon Johnson signed the act on July 2, 1964.
Ending here disrupts the city’s colonial tourism timeline in exactly the right way. A place can be four hundred years old and still have urgent twentieth-century history.
St. Augustine did not move smoothly from Spanish charm to modern hospitality. Black residents had to fight to receive equal access to the public city tourists were invited to enjoy.