31 King Street

The Ponce de Leon Shopping Center opened in 1955 as the first downtown shopping center in St. Augustine. Designed by Morris Lapidus, Florida's most famous mid-twentieth century architect, it is the only example of his work in the Ancient City. A Woolworth's store anchored its west side. After black college students in Greensboro, N.C. began a sit-in at their Woolworth's lunch counter on February 1, 1960, to protest racial discrimination, students from Florida Memorial College in St. Augustine began sitting in at this Woolworth's lunch counter a few weeks later. In the summer of 1963, local black high school students sat in here and were arrested. When they refused the judge's demand to end their participation in the civil rights effort, they spent the next six months in jail and reform school. The case of the St. Augustine Four—Audrey Nell Edwards, JoeAnn Anderson, Samuel White, and Willie Carl Singleton—received national publicity as an example of injustice, and the governor and cabinet of Florida ordered them released in January 1964. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Jackie Robinson hailed the St. Augustine Four as heroes of the civil rights movement.

St. Augustine, Florida · United States