The dedication of the Rev. Andrew Young Crossing monument here in St. Augustine will take place on June 11, 2011. That's the 47th anniversary of the arrest of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. by corrupt racist St. Johns County Sheriff L.O. DAVIS. That's the 47th anniversary of Dr. King's letter to New Jersey Rabbi Israel "Sy" Dresner, stating St. Augustine was the "most lawless" City in America. One week later, there was the largest arrest of rabbis in American history, on the steps of the Monson Hotel Restaurant where Dr. King was arrested on June 11, 1964.
Last night, City Commissioners voted 5-0 to approve pro bono architect Jeremy Marquis’ design – which Andrew Young called “brilliant” and a work of a “genius” -- the design of the Andrew Young Crossing Memorial.
Racist bullies and thugs twice beat Andrew Young, but he kept walking.
Last night, I praised Commissioners and told them about Judith Seraphin’s upcoming New York Times Magazine letter. I told Commissioners, in pertinent part:
Our Nation’s Oldest City has come a long way in nearly 446 years.
America’s first African-American slaves arrived in St. Augustine on September 8, 1565. As Lincolnville Neighborhood Association President Judith Seraphin writes in the upcoming New York Times Magazine (April 17, 2011): “The first slaves in the territory that we now regard as the United States were not brought to Virginia in 1619. That happened 54 years earlier, when our nation’s oldest European-founded City, St. Augustine, Fla., was founded by Spain’s Pedro Menéndez de Avilés on September 8, 1565. Menéndez’s contract with King Phillip afforded him three years to import 500 African slaves.”
Nearly 400 years later, slaves’ grandsons and granddaughters here demanded equal rights. They helped change the world. They embodied Gandhi’s sage advice: “Be the change you want to see in the world.”
On May 14th, St. Augustine will dedicate a monument to civil rights activists’ courage – the Footsoldiers Monument in the Slave Market Square. Then, on June 11th, a Rev. Andrew Young monument will be dedicated at King & St. George Streets. Why?
It happened in America, right here in St. Augustine, 47 years ago. Rev. Young was twice viciously attacked crossing King Street – seen in Young’s 2010 film, “Crossing in St. Augustine” and Jeremy Dean’s 2005 film, “Dare Not Walk Alone.” Young got up (twice) and kept leading marchers.
I pointed out the hate speech by political hatchetman and hate site operator MICHAEL GOLD f/k/a “MICHAEL TOBIN” below and urged them to embrace the civil rights monument. It is all about healing. We should reject hate and embrace civility, decency, love and compassion. It's about time -- 47 years since Andrew Young was viciously attacked by bullies here.
To their everlasting credit, Commissioners agreed, voting 5-0 to embrace healing and approve the Andrew Young Crossing Memorial. Thank you!
Hate site proprietor MICHAEL GOLD f/k/a “MICHAEL TOBIN” did not come to the podium and express his odious views, often expressed on such shady websites as Historic City News, plazabum and shamefulpeople.com. This juvenile brick-thrower was most noted by his absence.
It’s a new world.
Six years ago, City Manager WILLIAM B. HARRISS and then-Commissioners were too often rude to citizen participation. HARRISS threatened dissenters with arrest. He's gone.
Today, our City Commissioners are embracing healing, helping to make Lincolnville and West Augustine better places to live.
Good and decent people of St. Augustine have, working together for a better City, prevailed again and again and again since 2005. They got U.S. District Court Judge Henry Lee Adams, Jr. to order the Rainbow Flags flown on the Bridge of Lions, vindicating First Amendment rights. They exposed and remedied illegal dumping of solid waste in our Old City Reservoir, halting efforts to bring it back to Lincolnville in 2000 truckloads down Riberia Street, resulting in fines and a consent order. They exposed illegal dumping of sewage effluent in our saltwater marsh, resulting in fines and a consent order. They reported sewage spills, which were not remedied, leading to a spill of more than 611,000 gallons of raw sewage in our San Sebastian River, resulting in fines and consent orders.
MICHAEL GOLD f/k/a “MICHAEL TOBIN” speaks for the ancien régime. Last night, it
became clear that St. Augustine City Commissioners no longer take orders from MICHAEL GOLD and his patrons (e.g., the right-wing Whetstone family, ex-County Commissioner BRUCE MAGUIRE-WHETSTONE and assorted sordid developers – people who know not that they know not that they know not).
That's a good thing, and a civic improvement for our community. Those people have never done anything for our community, and they look to government to give them benefits without doing anything for anyone. These are cognitive misers. Of such people former U.S. Senator Gary Warren Hart once said, "You won't get government off your back until you get your hands out of its pocket."
At an upcoming City-County workshop, I look forward to our City Commissioners and County Commissioners discussing the merits of the proposed I-95 interchange, the National Civil Rights Museum and the St. Augustine National Historical Park, Seashore and Scenic Coastal Parkway Act. www.staugustgreen.comYes we can!
We shall overcome!
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