MLK visited her in jail -- Woman reflects on her work with the civil rights movement

MLK visited her in jail -- Woman reflects on her work with the civil rights movement

By RICHARD PRIOR
richard.prior@staugustine.com
Publication Date: 01/19/09



There are many ways a 12-year-old girl could choose to spend a June day in St. Augustine.

Packed in a jail cell with 50 other women is not one of them.

But maneuvering room was cramped in 1964, particularly if you were young, black and determined to end segregation.

"Some of the marches we had were very dangerous," said Pauline Williams Gilliard. "Some of the sit-ins were very dangerous ... a lot of fighting. ...

"One night, I got beaten. I got kicked on and spit on. I had different people jump across me to keep me from getting hurt real bad."

Gilliard at the time was a student at Richard J. Murray High School (now Middle School).

She marched during the day, marched at night and attended meetings at local churches.

She was at St. Paul's A.M.E. Episcopal Church the night famed Brooklyn Dodger Jackie Robinson addressed the crowd.

Gilliard was part of the throng that greeted Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., "a nice, gentle man," who had come to town to help organize protesters and lift their spirits.

She also met the Revs. Ralph Abernathy, Andrew Young and C.T. Vivian, one of King's closest aides.

"Dr. King had so many different places for us to go," she said. "During the day, you probably had five or six activities going on at one time."

Gilliard prodded her memory of those frightful, but ultimately fulfilling, days 44 years ago by leafing through her "Freedom Book."

The three-ring binder bulges at the spine with newspaper clippings and photos of the local civil rights movement.

Letters from jail

There are also letters from jail that she composed on paper towels.

"I was writing to pass the time of day," she said, "and keep the names of all those I went to jail with. Locals and some who'd come from out of state.

"We were such a hard place to crack ... a hard place to break the ice. So everybody from up North was willing to come down to the South. They got a joy out of coming to St. Augustine and helping us."

Gilliard was arrested three times.

One was when she and other students left the campus at Murray High School to join in a march.

The second time was when she tried to get served at a restaurant in the Ponce Motor Lodge.

"Those times we were just arrested, and they released us to our parents," she recalled. "There were too many of us and not enough cars.

"I was released to my godparents, saying I won't do it again.

"You tell 'em that, but you keep doing it again and again and again."


Jail time

The third time was different, when she and others tried to get served at Palms Motor Court, now the location of Howard Johnson's.

"The manager asked us to leave ... asked us three different times," Gilliard said. "Then he called the police."

The manager again asked them to leave. Then the officer asked them.

They refused, "So they eventually put us in the car and took us to jail.

"I was there for eight days."

Gilliard remembers moments of "chaos" in the 58-square-foot cell she shared with 50 other demonstrators.

Four bunks - two against each wall.

One area for the toilet; one face bowl, she recalled.

"There was no place to sleep," she said. "Wherever you sat down, you stayed there all day. And you slept there at night."

Many meals were baby food. Prisoners sometimes got coffee with undissolved grounds. They sometimes got grits, rice and oatmeal.

"I think my last meal coming out of jail was vegetables and rice and meatloaf, or something like that," said Gilliard.

Many demonstrators expected to be arrested, so they packed their pocketbooks "with everything we thought we'd need, like games."

The prisoners played cards day and night. They sang: "I woke up this morning with freedom on my mind. ..."


An inspiration

"It was very, very inspirational to see what was going on. How we did it ... so many of us in one cell," she said. "It was fun.

"Well, it's fun now. Back then, it was kind of scary because you didn't know what was going to happen to us when they pulled you out at night."

King often was a reassuring presence at the jail.

"He would come to the jail at night and always talk with us," said Gilliard. "He always had a word of prayer with us.

"We were in the jail when they signed (the Civil Rights Act of 1964). He came in and told us about it. He was ever so nice and polite with everybody."

This year's observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day will have special meaning for Gilliard, coming the day before the inauguration of the nation's first black president.

"No, I would have never thought we would have a black president," she said. "Not after they killed Dr. King.

"We thought we didn't have anyone left to support us. Not blacks, per se. But to help the poor people.

"I thank God for it. It was the Lord who made it happen."

Those who struggled in the heart of the darkness 44 years ago often had trouble telling if progress was being made.

"I think we all asked ourselves, 'Will we ever achieve what we're trying to do?' " Gilliard said. "It sometimes got to the point that we were thinking we're not going to win this case.

"Getting kicked on and spit on - that was the scary part. I thought, 'I'm not going back.'

"But I did go back. To the end."




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