The wonderful picture above was taken in the depth of the Jim Crow era. The date, sometime in 1906 and the location was the historic city of St. Augustine, Florida. And yet, somehow, despite living under the crushing legal and cultural racism of that time, the beautiful faces and physical stances of those three youngsters speak of youthful joy and hope for the future. And without a doubt, if those children were asked under trusted conditions, they would have immediately said, “What’s the matter with you? Hell yes, Black Lives Matter.”
Fast forward 52 years to 1964 and sadly, racial equality in St. Augustine, as in much of the South, had changed little. But having reached their limits of patience, local African Americans, and the reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. protested this lack of movement and were met with viscious white violence. In the end, though, those efforts by Dr. King, and many others, led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Black Lives Matter. A great start.
Eventually, in 2011, the City of St. Augustine took a momentous step of recognition and reconciliation by establishing a monument honoring those local heroes who protested inequality during the 1960s and who helped make the Civil Rights Act possible. Known as the St. Augustine Foot Soldiers, that monument was placed in the city’s central plaza. Black Lives Matter. Getting there.
Thing is, though, another monument existed in that same plaza in direct contradiction to the one honoring the civil rights Foot Soldiers. Established in 1872, the older and much taller monument honored Confederate Soldiers who lost their lives in the Civil War. Something had to give and it did during the summer of 2020 after the historic Black Lives Matter protests erupted across the nation and the world. And, much to their credit, the St. Augustine City Council voted 3-2 to have the Confederate monument removed from the plaza and placed somewhere else. Black Lives Matter, but only only 3-2.
And so, we say goodbye to those exuberant youngsters from the past. But in departing, let us ever remember them as symbols of how enduring and critically important is the term, “Black Lives Matter.” There is so much more yet to do. Keep up the good fight.
For further reading
City unveils Foot Soldiers monument
Dr. Martin King, Jr. in St. Augustine
End Entrenched Racist Policing Now
Florida Frontiers “St. Augustine Foot Soldiers”
Oldest City to Relocate Confederate Memorial
Racism in St. Augustine: not just a thing of the past
St. Augustine commissioners vote to remove Confederate monument
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