Commission gets preview of civil rights monument
By KATI BEXLEY
kati.bexley@staugustine.com
Publication Date: 04/29/08
After nearly a decade of determination, Barbara Vickers came a step closer Monday to seeing people like herself honored for their work in St. Augustine during the civil rights turmoil.
Vickers unveiled a model of the planned monument for the St. Augustine City Commission. It is to be built in the Plaza de la Constitucion to honor the "foot soldiers" who fought for the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
"They were called foot soldiers because they marched and fought (for civil rights)," said Vickers, the president of the monument project. "We worked for 10 years to get something placed somewhere to honor them.
"We just kept working and working until the city decided they would do it."
St. Augustine was the only place in Florida where Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested. Many fights and marches took place at the plaza.
The monument, sculpted by Brian Owens of Deltona, will be a bronze plaque, weighing about 650 pounds, placed atop a concrete pedestal. It will be 6 feet tall.
On the plaque will be the faces of a white-colored college student, a young black man, an older black woman and a teenage black woman, all the diverse faces of the movement in St. Augustine, Owens said.
"I think it's unique that St. Augustine had so many young people involved," he said.
City Commissioners were impressed and said they were glad to see the project is close to coming to fruition.
The monument will be built at the east of the plaza and cost roughly $70,000. St. Augustine resident Nena Vreeland has already donated $20,000. A group is looking for others to donate the rest of the money, Vickers said.
"When she called me I thought I was going to have a heart attack," Vickers said. "I couldn't believe it."
(Checks may be written to the St. Augustine Foot Soldiers Remembrance Project and mailed to P.O. Box 164, St. Augustine, FL 32085.)
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