J. MICHAEL BUTLER: MLK IN ST. AUGUSTINE

The civil rights movement in St. Augustine drew national attention when Martin Luther King, Jr. visited twice in 1964, sparking marches, arrests, and clashes between protesters and police on the tourist-lined beaches. Local and national objectives complemented and contradicted each other in ways that affect race relations today and are examined in this presentation.

Dr. J. Michael Butler is a Kenan Distinguished Professor of History at Flagler College where he has taught since 2008. He has published numerous essays and his book Beyond Integration: The Black Freedom Struggle in Escambia County, Florida, 1960-1980 won a 2017 Florida Book Award in nonfiction. Dr. Butler specializes in southern cultural history with an emphasis on the Black freedom struggle and has spoken to dozens of teachers and community groups about the civil rights movement.

This Florida Talks program is a partnership between Florida Humanities and Friends of the Library of St. Johns County. Funding for this program was provided by Florida Humanities and sponsored in part by the the State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Arts and Culture, the Florida Council on Arts and Culture, and the National Endowment for the Arts.