Former St. Johns County Jail

Designed by architect F. A. Hollingsworth, this building opened in 1953 as the St. Johns County Jail, replacing an earlier jail on San Marco Avenue that later became a tourist attraction. A decade later it became a prominent site in the civil rights movement, when hundreds of demonstrators were incarcerated here in 1963 and 1964. At one point, the president of the United States was told that if he wanted to keep an eye on the leaders of the civil rights movement, he should look at the St. Johns County Jail. Photographs of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. taken here became some of the iconic images of that era. The demonstrations in St. Augustine, under the leadership of Dr. Robert B. Hayling, led directly to the passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, one of the two great legislative accomplishments of the movement. Many well-known people spent time in this building, including the St. Augustine Four, teenagers who spent six months in jail and reform school for sitting in at a local lunch counter; Mrs. Mary Peabody, the 72-year-old mother of the governor of Massachusetts; author Sarah Patton Boyle; and participants in the largest mass arrest of rabbis in American history. Civil rights leaders including Dr. King, Rev. Ralph Abernathy, Hosea Williams, Rev. C. T. Vivian, Rev. Andrew Young, and Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth also passed through here. Although many notable supporters came from outside, the largest number of those arrested were local residents, the foot soldiers of the movement, whom Dr. King hailed as the heroes of St. Augustine for their courage in standing against racial segregation and helping change America and inspire the world.

Florida · United States