The St. Augustine Movement Poster

In 1963, despite the decision of the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board nearly a decade earlier, segregation was alive and well in St. Augustine, Florida. But the Black youth in the city were not having it. Under the leadership of Dr. R.B. Hayling, teenagers led sit-ins at lunch counters and beaches, forcing white St. Augustine residents to confront the inequality that undergirded the society and economy of their small city. Hayling and the NAACP refused to back down in the face of threats from the Klan, and when segregationists and Klan members showed up at night in Black neighborhoods intent on a terror campaign, they drove them off with gunfire. Dr. Hayling publicly stated, "I and the others have armed. We will shoot first and answer questions later." Hayling went on to face harassment, false charges, and abuse at the hands of the police and the Klan, but never for a moment dropped his militant attitude. Grab a copy of this poster from the Celebrate People's History series and commemorate Hayling and the other protester's defiance in the face of an unrelenting racist assault on their civil rights.