Remembering Ax Handle Saturday on its 64th Anniversary
Tuesday, August 27 is the 64th anniversary of Ax Handle Saturday, a peaceful protest of a whites-only lunch counter by the NAACP Youth Council. It turned bloody when white supremacists were waiting for them in the park (present day James Weldon Johnson Park) with Ax Handles and baseball bats.
Although not the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement, this tragic event was a turning point, awakening many to the injustices and eventually leading to the segregation of Jacksonville’s lunch counters in 1961. Jacksonville’s Rodney Hurst, at age 16, was President of the NAACP Youth Council on that day and helped organize the sit-in.
His book entitled “It was never about a hot dog and a Coke®!” chronicles not only the events of that fateful day, but the political and educational climate that led to the sit-in, as well as the aftermath.
To read more about Civil Rights hero Rodney Hurst and to buy a copy of his book, visit: RodneyHurst.com
