Because the Jacksonville neighborhood mourns the lack of three individuals killed Saturday in a racist capturing, extra particulars are rising concerning the white supremacist who went to a Greenback Common retailer trying to goal Black individuals earlier than killing himself. Authorities say he left behind a suicide word and different writings outlining his racist ideology. The 21-year-old gunman had legally purchased the 2 weapons he used within the capturing, together with an AR-15-style rifle marked with swastikas. The capturing occurred as 1000’s gathered in Washington, D.C., on Saturday to mark the sixtieth anniversary of the March on Washington and Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Activists in Jacksonville had additionally been making ready commemorations of Ax Deal with Saturday, when a white mob led by the Ku Klux Klan violently attacked Black civil rights protesters on August 27, 1960. “This hurricane of racism that we’ve been coping with within the Jacksonville neighborhood will not be new,” says Jacksonville-based historian and civil rights chief Rodney Hurst, who helped lead desegregation protests within the metropolis throughout the Sixties.
TRANSCRIPT
It is a rush transcript. Copy might not be in its closing kind.
AMY GOODMAN: That is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The Conflict and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
Vigils in Jacksonville, Florida, are persevering with after a white supremacist gunman shot and killed three Black individuals at a greenback retailer on Saturday. The gunman, who had a swastika on his AR-15-style gun, attacked a greenback retailer in a predominantly Black neighborhood after being turned away from the campus of Edward Waters College, an HBCU, a traditionally Black faculty. The gunman shot himself lifeless after the rampage. Jacksonville Sheriff T.Ok. Waters spoke to reporters.
SHERIFF T.Ok. WATERS: Our neighborhood is grappling to know why this atrocity occurred. I urge us all to not search for sense in a mindless act of violence. There’s no purpose or clarification that can ever account for the shooter’s choices and actions. His sickening ideology will not be consultant of the values of this Jacksonville neighborhood that all of us love a lot. We’re not a neighborhood of hate. We stand united with the nice and first rate individuals of this metropolis.
AMY GOODMAN: Saturday’s capturing occurred on the similar time 1000’s have been gathering in Washington, D.C., to mark the sixtieth anniversary of the March on Washington, when Dr. Martin Luther King gave his “I Have a Dream” speech. The Jacksonville capturing additionally occurred as civil rights activists in Jacksonville have been making ready to recollect the 63rd anniversary of Ax Deal with Saturday. On August 27, 1960, a white mob led by the Ku Klux Klan violently attacked Black protesters who have been engaged in peaceable sit-ins in Jacksonville. We’re going to play a bit about that in a second.
However proper now we’re joined now by two company: Rodney Hurst, civil rights chief from Jacksonville, in addition to a historian and the award-winning creator of a number of books, former president of the NAACP Youth Council in Jacksonville that helped lead the sit-in protests in Jacksonville in 1960; we’re additionally joined by Democratic Congressmember Maxwell Alejandro Frost of Florida, the primary Afro-Cuban American and first member of Technology Z to serve in Congress. Frost is the previous nationwide organizing director for March for Our Lives, which was shaped by survivors of the Parkland capturing in Florida.
From the Parkland capturing to what we noticed in Jacksonville, let’s start with Rodney Hurst. Our condolences to your complete neighborhood, three lifeless, this so acquainted, as we noticed what occurred in Buffalo on the Tops grocery retailer. Are you able to speak about how individuals are responding and what they’re demanding proper now in Jacksonville? And thanks a lot for becoming a member of us, as Jacksonville appears to be like prefer it’s within the goal of the storm, the hurricane that’s making its means up from Cuba.
RODNEY HURST: Yeah, an honor to be with you. Yeah, we’re in one other hurricane, that can come by Jacksonville later this week.
However this hurricane of racism that we’ve been coping with within the Jacksonville neighborhood will not be new. It’s virtually as if it’s a recurring-type circumstance. Jacksonville’s neighborhood, clearly, is outraged. The Black neighborhood is outraged. There was a prayer vigil. The governor confirmed up on the prayer vigil. He was booed by a variety of Black folks who have been there, as a result of his rhetoric, the jargon that has dribbled out of his mouth, has set the tempo, the tenor, the ambiance for the sorts of racism and the core racist attitudes that we have now seen that has plowed the bottom for the fertility of what’s taking place on this nation proper now. They’ve taken — “they” being the DeSantises, the Donald Trumps of this nation — have taken conversations from personal sources, personal insides, to public, and a number of the issues they used to whisper, they’re saying publicly.
The opposite drawback that I feel that we have to cope with is that there’s a silence within the white Christian neighborhood. We don’t see the outrage with what has occurred with white folks right here in Jacksonville. There are some, clearly, and so this received’t be a broad brush. However it’s essential to really feel that outrage.
However what occurs is that if you’re coping with a circumstance, and in his nation, the place Black folks, from the founding of this nation, have been so disrespected and insulted as a result of they have been thought-about nothing greater than property, then it’s very simple to see that what occurs to us is one thing, “Oh, nicely, it’s them and never us,” after which individuals go on about their enterprise. However that’s not how the way in which you govern. That isn’t how the way in which you develop a neighborhood and convey individuals collectively.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Rodney Hurst, might you discuss concerning the — again in 1960, your involvement within the civil rights motion, the assault that you just suffered on what’s known as Ax Deal with Saturday, after dozens of white individuals attacked you and different peaceable protesters at a lunch counter with ax handles and baseball bats? And the way far do you assume Jacksonville has are available these previous 70 so years?
AMY GOODMAN: Really, Rodney Hurst, earlier than you lay it out right here, we’d like to present some credit score to your grandson-in-law, who did an incredible quick doc, the place he brings us the video footage and also you describing what occurred, known as Except We Inform It, the video directed by Kyle Dorrell, that includes you, Rodney Hurst, who served because the president of the NAACP Youth Council in Jacksonville, which organized these sit-ins in 1960. Let’s go to a clip of that, in response to Juan’s query.
RODNEY HURST: So, throughout the summer season, we sat in in any respect the lunch counters in downtown Jacksonville. The primary one was Woolworth’s. And we had greater than 85 younger people who day. A few of the seats have been — individuals have been sitting in them, however each vacant seat, we sat in. And the white waitress stated to us, “You’ll be able to’t sit right here. That is for white individuals. The coloured lunch counter is behind the shop.” And we stated, “We need to be served.” “Properly, we don’t serve Negroes right here. You may be served within the again.”
So, the supervisor got here out. His identify was James Phrase. And he learn a card. And after he learn us the cardboard, he closed the lunch counter. So, then whites stood behind us yelling the racial epithets — “jungle bunny,” “[bleep],” “[bleep] ain’t performing like coloured individuals for the NAACP.” So we all the time sat longer than lunchtime, as a result of we figured that they serve contemporary lunches. There have been no microwaves, no convection ovens. So for those who needed your racism, we needed to make it as costly as attainable, so we sat longer than the lunchtime.
We noticed no police all the time. We later came upon that police have been there in plainclothes as a result of they have been taking photos of all of us. You’ll assume the slogan “to guard and serve” would imply one thing. It didn’t imply something when it got here to these of us who have been sitting in. As we have now seen in sit-in demonstrations — Jim Clark, Bull Connor — they didn’t care about your age. They cared lower than a tinker’s rattling about who you have been, male or feminine, younger or previous. In case your pores and skin was Black, then no matter you bought, you deserved it.
The top of that week was August twenty seventh. Mr. Pearson obtained a name from — he by no means did inform us who he obtained the decision from, however obtained a name saying, and his phrase to us was there have been “some unusual goings-on” at Hemming Park. So, when he obtained right down to Hemming Park, there have been white males in Accomplice uniforms handing out ax handles. So, once we had our assembly that morning on the Laura Road Presbyterian Church Youth Heart, Mr. Pearson instructed us — he instructed us what was happening. And Mr. Pearson’s phrases have been: “One thing might occur at the moment.”
We proceeded anyway. It was wholesome concern, however it was decided braveness. And we sat in. We didn’t go to Woolworth’s that day. We went to Grant’s, which was on the nook of Adams and Most important. And once more, they closed the lunch counter.
So, as we walked out of Grant’s and turned west on Adams Road, I obtained this panorama. I noticed a man up on high of a truck together with his digital camera. And I heard the commotion and noticed individuals within the distance operating down Adams Road, and couldn’t fairly visualize what was taking place. Then I noticed the man on high of the truck with the digital camera knocked off of the truck by anyone swinging one thing. And in a brief time frame, we realized this was a mob, they usually have been coming for us. Shops there on Adams Road began locking their doorways. Our solely choice was to run to get out of hazard.
I ran down Most important Road. Any individual picked me up and took me to the Laura Road Presbyterian Church Youth Heart. And slowly, members of the Youth Council began coming again, crying. The rumors began flying: Any individual obtained killed, anyone obtained beat up.
Two patrolmen from the sheriff’s division confirmed up. They stated they needed to speak to us. However the pastor was there, Wilbert Miller. Reverend Miller, who was the pastor of the Presbyterian Church, was about 5’7”. And Reverend Miller, wanting up on the patrolman, from 5’7” to six’1” or regardless of the man was, saying, “You’ll not set foot on church property.” They usually didn’t.
ON-SCREEN TEXT: Jacksonville, Florida, Mayor Haydon Burns publicly acknowledged the horrific occasions of that day by no means occurred.
RODNEY HURST: We had a press convention on the house of a Black physician, Dr. James Henderson. He was a dentist. And from there, we deliberate a mass assembly at St. Paul AME Church on the nook of thirteenth and Myrtle.
We had additionally heard that the Klan was going to march within the Black neighborhood that evening. So there have been Blacks sitting inside their automobiles with weapons and rifles in case the Klan determined they needed to return down Myrtle Avenue.
We had reporters from all around the nation. St. Paul AME Church seemed like a global press convention. So, we introduced the boycott, and the Occasions-Union introduced the boycott of downtown Jacksonville.
ON-SCREEN TEXT: Over the following a number of months a strategic plan was put into place, by an unofficial biracial committee to combine the downtown lunch counters.
RODNEY HURST: However we went right down to Woolworth’s 5 days in a row to the white lunch counter, and Marjorie and I ate on the white lunch counter for 5 days in a row. And after these 5 days, the entire lunch counters in downtown Jacksonville have been built-in.
The civil rights motion has all the time been about “we” and “us,” not “me” and “I.” So, every little thing we have been capable of do, we have been capable of do it for these folks who appear to be us. And so long as we’re combating racism and combating for Black human dignity and respect, the battle continues, and the battle will not be in useless.
AMY GOODMAN: A brief documentary about Ax Deal with Saturday known as _Unless We Inform It, directed by Kyle Dorrell, that includes our visitor, Rodney Hurst, who served as president of the NAACP Youth Council in Jacksonville, which organized these sit-ins in 1960. In actual fact, Rodney Hurst, it was August twenty seventh if you have been remembering that 63 years in the past, Saturday —
RODNEY HURST: Sure.
AMY GOODMAN: — when the capturing happened.
RODNEY HURST: Yeah, the capturing was on Saturday. The precise day date, or the date of the month, was Sunday, which was the precise 63rd commemoration that we had. We’ve been having these commemorations over time.
In 1960, when sit-ins started in Greensboro, North Carolina, by 4 college students from North Carolina A&T, many of the sit-inners have been faculty college students. In Jacksonville, most of us have been highschool college students, motivated not solely to know who we have been in Black historical past, however to hitch the Youth Council NAACP by my eighth grade American historical past trainer, whose identify was Rutledge Pearson, after I was 11 years previous. I began faculty after I was 5, and I obtained skipped. So, as my pastor would say, favor ain’t truthful. However I joined the Youth Council NAACP at 11, and I grew to become president at 15 and led the sit-ins at 16. However 95%-plus of the younger individuals who sat in in Jacksonville have been highschool college students. Mr. Pearson had a slogan that he would say to us: “Freedom will not be free. In case you’re not part of the answer, then you definately’re part of the issue.” And we needed to be part of the answer.
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