St. Augustine will commemorate the anniversary of the largest arrest of rabbis in US history. (Lucia Viti, St. Augustine Record, June 11, 2025)

What is to be done?  What can you do?  

1. Come speak out at St. Johns County Cultural Resources Review Board on June 30, 2025 at 1:30 PM, St. Johns County Commission Auditorium, 500 Sebastian View. 

2. Come commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Rabbis' arrest on June 18, 2025 and visit the portable museum at the 1953 St. Johns County Jail at 4025 Lewis Speedway.  

3. Read fired St. Johns County Cultural Resources Coordinator Trey Alexander Asner's proposal to declare the Jail a local landmark, here:   https://cleanupcityofstaugustine.blogspot.com/2025/05/recommendation-to-nominate-historic-st.html

4. Speak out in favor of Mr. Asner being rehired as Historic Preservation Officer, instanter.

 From June 11, 2025 St. Augustine Record:

St. Augustine will commemorate the anniversary of the largest arrest of rabbis in US history

Lucia Viti, St. Augustine Record

June 11, 2025

• St. Augustine will commemorate the 60th anniversary of the largest mass arrest of rabbis in US history.
• The event will feature the Florida debut of the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Mobile Museum of Tolerance.
• The commemoration will include government officials, historians, and family members of those arrested.

On June 18, St. Augustine will commemorate the anniversary of the largest mass arrest of rabbis in the American history at the Old County Jail located on Lewis Speedway.

Beginning at noon, the annual event, now in its 13^th year, is being hosted by the St. Augustine Jewish Historical Society, the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office and the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Mobile Museum of Tolerance.

Celebrating its Florida debut, the Mobile Museum of Tolerance will remain on site until 4 p.m.

Government officials, historians, residents and guests, including Rabbi Merrill Shapiro, the founder of SAJHS; St. Augustine Mayor Nancy Sikes-Kline; and Avi Dresner, documentary filmmaker son of Rabbi Israel Dresner, one of the 16 rabbis arrested; will mark this historic event.

Following the ceremony, guests are invited to explore the Mobile Museum of Tolerance, an interactive space designed to educate junior and high school students and adults on civil rights, moral courage and combating hate as it travels the Sunshine State presenting workshops at schools, community centers and public forums.

Shapiro described the letter written by the rabbis as a “creative witness to the joint convictions of racial justice and equality."

"The letter ... will be read from the steps of the Jail Annex, a building that has just been saved from the wrecking ball by those who, even today, share those convictions," he told the St. Augustine Record. "This year’s reading by Mayor Nancy Sikes-Kline is further contextualized by the presence of Avi, the son of the late Rabbi Israel “Sy” Dresner, to whom the appeal for help by the rabbis was addressed in 1964. Even more context will be provided by the presence of the Mobile Museum of Tolerance, the educational arm of California’s Simon Wiesenthal Center, which challenges visitors to confront bigotry, antisemitism and prejudice. The message is more meaningful than ever as rising antisemitism and rising bigotry toward immigrants challenges the notion that ours is a nation “with liberty and justice for all.”

Shapiro said that all voices must confront the raw hate and the ignorant prejudices.

"Sixty years ago, the rabbis called upon us to not be silent at a time when silence has become the unpardonable sin of our time. We [rabbis] came [to St. Augustine] in the hope that the God of us all would accept our small involvement as partial atonement for the many things we wish we had done before and often.”

Spotlight on St. Augustine

In 1964, the Civil Rights Act, first proposed by President John F. Kennedy before his assassination, languished by filibuster in the U.S. Senate.

St. Augustine’s Lincolnville, a residential Black community east of the railroad, became a hotbed for violence after four Black teenagers ― Audrey Nell Edwards, JoeAnn Anderson Ulmer, Willie Carl Singleton, and Samuel White ― were arrested for sitting at the White’s only lunch counter at the Woolworth's on King Street.

Dubbed the St. Augustine Four, the teenagers were offered leniency by government officials if they publicly accused the town’s only Black dentist, Dr. Robert B. Hayling, of convincing the teenagers to protest. At the time, Hayling, St. Augustine's most influential activist, was coordinating peaceful demonstrations against segregation and discrimination.

Upon refusal, the teens were sentenced to correctional facilities instead of detention centers, a sentence considered harsh.

Lincolnville’s Black citizens were so outraged, they organized what became known as the St. Augustine Movement. Spearheaded by Hayling, Black residents marched and protested as the Ku Klux Klan attacked their homes with fire-bombs, bricks and gunfire. At the time, Hayling's wife, pregnant with her second child, avoided a bullet shot into their home that killed the family dog.

Hayling and three activists were even beaten with chains and clubs and rescued within minutes of being lynched at a KKK rally held a stone’s throw away from U.S. 1. Hayling’s broken ribs, maimed hand and the loss of 11 teeth garnered him a fine for assault.

Beaten but not broken, Hayling called the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to assist in taming the violence. King and his men descended upon St. Augustine and organized peaceful marches, sit-ins and wade-ins as the KKK, law enforcement officers and government officials retaliated.

A week in June in the ancient city would then forever change American history.

We Could Not Be Silent

On June 12, King was arrested while attempting to eat at St. Augustine’s bayfront Monson Motor Lodge, a Whites only restaurant. Documents show that while locked in the county jail, King telegrammed his friend Dresner – a Freedom Rider from the 1961 interfaith clergy Freedom Ride – requesting assistance in the form of the presence of Jewish rabbis.

The plan was one of distraction for a wade-in scheduled simultaneously in the pool of the Monson Motor Lodge. The rabbis would distract hotel management as Black and White protesters would venture into the pool.

Dresner read the telegram on June 16 as rabbis gathered for the 75^th Central Conference of American Rabbis. Dresner heeded the call and was joined by Rabbis Eugene Borowitz; Balfour Brickner; Daniel Fogel; Jerrold Goldstein; Joel Goor; Joseph Herzog; Norman Hirsch; Leon Jick; Richard Levy; Eugene Lipman; Michael Robinson; B.T. Rubenstein; Murray Saltzman; Allen Secher; and layman Clyde T. Sills to descend upon the ancient city.

Two days later, on June 18, Dresner, Sills and the rabbis were arrested for praying at the entrance of the Monson Motor Lodge. Two rabbis were also arrested for sitting with three Black students in the restaurant. It remains the largest mass arrest of rabbis in America.  

Within minutes on the same Thursday, the motel's manager, James Brock was photographed pouring two jugs of muriatic acid into the motel's Whites-only pool to force out Black students during their wade in. The students were able to gain access into the pool as the rabbis were arrested for praying in the courtyard. Although no one was hurt, the images that landed on the front pages of American newspapers sparked national public outrage.

While in jail, the rabbis wrote a letter to the Jewish community explaining why they heeded King’s call.

"We came because we realized that injustice in St. Augustine, as anywhere else, diminishes the humanity of each of us," they wrote, while describing King's request as a heed to witness the convictions of equality and racial justice.

“We came because we know that, second only to silence, the greatest danger to man is loss of faith in man’s capacity to act,” they wrote. “.... We could not say no to Martin Luther King, whom we always respected and admired and whose loyal friends we hope we shall be in the days to come. We could not pass by the opportunity to achieve a moral goal by moral means – a rare modern privilege – which has been the glory of the non-violent struggle for civil rights.”

The rabbis shared how they relied on each other while sweltering in the hot jail, writing by the light of one naked lightbulb that hung in the corridor.

“Never have the bonds of Judaism and the fellowship of the rabbinate been more clearly expressed to us all or more deeply felt by each of us,” they wrote.

“Ironically,” they said, their three-page letter was composed on the back of the mimeographed report of the bloody assaults made by the KKK in St. Augustine.

Documents show that The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People bailed out the rabbis for $900 each the following morning. The men were charged with trespassing, conspiracy and disturbing the peace.

The story made national headlines including The New York Times, which touted on its frontpage “16 Rabbis Arrested as Pool Dive-In Sets off St. Augustine Rights Clash.”

As St. Augustine’s drama unfolded center stage, the U.S. Senate, ended its 83-day filibuster and passed the Civil Rights Act. It was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson two weeks later.

With his dental practice all but destroyed, Hayling moved to Cocoa Beach and onto Fort Lauderdale where he practiced dentistry until his retirement. He died in 2015 at the age of 86. His dental office located in Lincolnville at 79 Bridge St., became Florida's first civil rights museum on July 2, 2014, on the 50th anniversary of the passing of Civil Rights Act of 1964 as law.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Mobile Museums of Tolerance

The Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Mobile Museums of Tolerance are free, traveling education centers that combat antisemitism and other forms of hate by teaching tolerance.

Through interactive programs and curriculums, visitors are called to confront bigotry, antisemitism, and prejudice and learn about the historical significance of the Holocaust of World War II.

In the 30-seat wheelchair accessible, self-contained classroom, a licensed educator leads facilitated workshops that cover the topics of propaganda, discrimination, hate and dehumanization in an age-appropriate manner.

According to the MMOT website, workshops teach visitors the dangers of the past in order to create a better future focused on tolerance, kindness and empathy.

“All workshops are endorsed by the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) and are in alignment with Illinois learning standards and mandated curriculum,” the Wiesenthal Center said. “In partnership with the Illinois Department of Human Rights' Commission on Discrimination and Hate Crimes, MMOT workshops empower participants with knowledge of the dangers of the past in order to create a better future.”

In addition to middle and high schools, MMOTs visit college and university campuses, libraries, synagogues, churches, police stations, parks and community centers.

Jessica Gall-Adediran, director of field education for the Mobile Museum of Tolerance told the St. Augustine Record that the Florida Department of Education secured the funding for the transporting the mobile museum into America’s oldest city.

“Connecting with St. Augustine’s Historical Jewish Society led us to believe that bringing the bus to the commemoration that was already diligently planned was a good thing,” she said. "The role that Florida played in the Civil Rights Movement is amazing,” she said.

The bus hosts up to 30 students for 45- to 90-minute learning modules that review the Civil Rights Movement and the Holocaust.

The research for this article includes a review of documents found in St. Augustine's Accord Museum and interviews with historian David Nolan, and Cora Tyson.