The campaign between June and July 1964 was led by Robert Hayling, Martin Luther King Jr., Ralph Abernathy, Andrew Young, Hosea Williams, C. T. Vivian and Fred Shuttlesworth, among others.

Eventually, the courts forced Brock and his colleagues to integrate their businesses, and soon after he did, the Monson was firebombed by the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), who violently opposed desegregation.

St. Augustine, Florida, a beautiful town and our nation's oldest city, was the scene of raging tempers, flaring violence, and the most corrupt coalition of segregationist opposition outside of Mississippi.

It was deliberately chosen, continues Jackson, as it had "a business elite vulnerable to negative publicity because it was dependent on northern tourist dollars, a police force with close ties to the Klan, and a reputation for brutal extralegal violence".

[10] Here Sheriff L. O. Davis, "a buffoonish, burly, thuggish man", employed an auxiliary force of one hundred deputies, many of them prominent Klansmen, to "keep the niggers in line."

Here barrel-chested Hoisted "Hoss" Manucy, dressed in cowboy paraphernalia, led a bunch of Klan-style bullyboys who called themselves the Ancient City Gun Club.

[14] The campaign in St. Augustine effectively began on Easter Sunday, March 29, 1964,[20] and was deliberately aimed at the city's food and tourism industries, which, argues sociologist Ralph C. Scott, "were as much about race as they were about national and class privilege".

[20] Monson's was targeted because its owner, James Brock, was not only a prominent local businessman and president of the trade association, but the motel was regularly patronized by reporters, so was felt to provide easy access to the media.

[23] An interracial group, which included the 72-year-old mother of Massachusetts' Governor, Endicott Peabody, and the wife of that state's Episcopal Bishop, John Burgess,[20][note 3] led by Reverend David Robinson,[24] attempted to integrate the motel's restaurant.

[40] At around 12:20,[41] on June 11, King and his colleagues Ralph Abernathy, Bernard Lee, Clyde Jenkins,[42] Will England,[43] a white chaplain from Boston University,[44] and five others[16] arrived at the Monson for lunch.

[43] At this point, the Chief of police Virgil Stuart and Sheriff L. O. Davis,[44] arrived in possession of arrest warrant for breach of the peace, conspiracy and trespass against King and his colleagues.

Looking, according to Hayling, haggard and frightened", he refused to talk about his overnight imprisonment and left St. Augustine immediately,[51] traveling first to Harvard University to collect an honorary degree and then to Washington, DC to be photographed with Johnson.

[60] King had ensured that "the nation's attention would be focused on the brutal actions of the Klan and the adamant stand elected officials of St. Augustine had taken to prevent demonstrators from protesting segregation".

[59] On the evening of Wednesday, June 17, leading Reform rabbi Albert Vorspan and 16 colleagues[66] from eight different states[67] joined a mass-meeting in the St. Augustine Baptist Church, where King "announced their entrance to an enthusiastic crowd".

[72] By now, suggests Colburn, the almost daily marches to and trespasses on his business—combined with equal pressure from segregationists not to surrender—had worn away Brock's usual calm and pleasant demeanor, leaving him irritable and short-tempered.

[75] As they attempted to leave the pool, members of the straining crowd shouted numerous threats, including to shoot, stone, or drown the swimmers[66] and called for dogs.

[77] Brock's attempt to force the protesters out did not work,[59] and, impatient at the slow progress the swimmers were making in leaving the pool,[78] Officer James Hewitt announced that they were all under arrest.

But the law had a far broader reach, barring employment discrimination on the basis of "race, color, religion, sex or national origin" and ending federal funding for discriminatory programs.

The unease stemmed from fears as to how the KKK would react to their adhering to desegregation, and he wrote to Judge Simpson requesting the aid of US Marshals from "the mob action that will undoubtedly occur".

[88] On July 4, Brock, as the spokesman for the St. Augustine Hotel, Motel, and Restaurant Owners Association, stated that they "want[ed] to do everything we can to get our community back to normal with harmonious relations between the races".

[92]The Monson Motor Lodge and its restaurant became the epicenter of a violent battle between civil rights supporters and white supremacists after blacks were banned from the facility in June 1964.

[97] He was concerned because the struggle there had taken a disproportionate amount of time and manpower, and, notes Bishop, "he was a man with a carefully planned schedule and the calendar of coming events was becoming crowded".

[97] Judge Simpson ordered Brock and his colleagues to obey the law and reintegrate: this, argues Oates, "gave them the excuse of external coercion to take down the "WHITES ONLY" signs—"what else can we do?

He believed that businesses had encouraged white thugs to confront black picketers and demonstrators—if only through lack of protesting—so they could hardly now complain that the "monster" they had created "now ran amok in their city".

[105] Webb, too, argues that silence implicitly equaled approval, particularly among restaurateurs, some of whom not only held KKK fundraisers but provided leading Klansmen and segregationists with free meals.

[108] An investigative committee announced by the state legislature eventually—and, comments Warren, with a "remarkable lack of understanding"—variously blamed King, the KKK, newspapers, and television, for racial problems that could otherwise "have been solved amicably by Negro and White citizens last summer had they been free from outside agitation."

[110] Although the business community had changed its policies if not its attitude towards racial integration by 1965, Blacks were still unsure, generally, of where they stood and few dined out in white motels or restaurants.

[114] Wade-ins and swim-ins remained a central tactic for Floridian blacks even after the passing of the Civil Rights Act, and laid the path of integrating other areas of society that were proving less than susceptible to change, such as green open spaces and schools.

[117] Author David Nolan told WJCT that "people would claim the motel had no historic significance, even though a large civil rights protest occurred there".

[119] The owner, a local property developer, wanted to build a new corporate hotel, while opponents believed it would be a useful target for drawing more black tourists to Florida, something the state was attempting to do.