greensboro, north carolina, had started this new tactic sitting in at segregated lunch counters. that tactic moved from greensboro, north carolina and soon spread all over the south. by august, 1960 it had spread to jacksonville, florida, the home of alton yates. a local naacp in 1960 had a youth council. the president of the youth council was all of 16 years old. he was a high school student named rodney hearst. the vice president of the naacp council in jacksonville was this recently discharged hero airman, alton yates. and under their leadership, this high school kid and this recently discharged hero, usairman, the naacp youth council in jacksonville, florida decided in 1960, august, 1960, august 13th to be specific, that
hundreds of white men running through the downtown chasing people down and beating them with ax handles, after that initial, frenzied attack, the rioting in jacksonville actually continued for two more nights. the florida town union the white paper of record did not see fit to mention it. it was just a hurricane of violence. in the end, the kids, the young people who organized those protests at the lunch counters, they won. they started those protests like i said in august, 1960. by the spring of 1961, jacksonville had quietly integrated its downtown lunch counters. and it took longer but the florida times union newspaper in recent years has tried to make up for the dismal role that it played in these events. it has in years since covered
meeting to plan not just resistance but a violent counterattack to stop these kids. and we know this. there is documentary proof of it because the local klan in jacksonville at the time included one man who volunteered to be an fbi informant inside the klan and he gave the minutef of the klan meeting from august 24th, 1960, to the fbi. this meeting in which they planned to attack these young people from the naacp youth a council. the fbi then alerted the local sheriff s office that the klan was planning a violent attack. local authorities, local law or enforcement knew the whole plan in advance. they knew the klan was planning to bring hundreds of white men downtown into jacksonville the following saturday, august 27th, whereupon they would have stashed baseball bats and ax handles to use as their weapons. the informant said the klan s initial plan had been sort of theatrical.an they planned to have a white woman pretend to have been attacked by young black men who were trying to deseg
jacksonville park. they went to retrieve them from that park. they handed out more of them from vehicle. some sort of enter track. and then these clansmen, something like 200 of them just murat it into downtown jacksonville. and they of sensibly were targeting the young people. the naacp youth council that had been carrying out the non violent civil disobedience at the lunch counters. but it turns out the klan couldn t contain themselves and it turned into just a free-for-all. and yes, the naacp youth council was set upon. second class, alton yates was cracked across the skull. but they also went after anybody who was black. in downtown jacksonville that they. including women, and kids, and men who had nothing to do with the demonstration at all. we re just passersby. this photo appeared in life magazine at the time.
they said that the plan was to, the informant said the plan wasm to get this woman near to where the sit-in demonstration was em happening and then she would collapse and say she had been attacked and that s why she collapsed. and they thought that would give the klansmen all the cover they d need to open up the gates of hell in downtown jacksonville.le in the end though that was their plan they decided they didn t de need the pretext of the woman re pretending to be attacked, the woman pretending to collapse. the klansmen stashed ax handles and baseball bats in the bushes at a downtown jacksonville park. they went and retrieved them from that park. they handed out more of them from a vehicle, some sort of van or truck, and then these klansmen, something like 200 of them, just mauraded into downtown jacksonville and ostensibly were targeting the young people, the naacp youth council that had been carrying out the nonviolent civil disobedience at the lunch counters. but turns out the kl