He attended public schools in Bayside, New York and Waterbury, Connecticut, studied at the University of Virginia, and was active in the American Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.
In 1995 he collaborated with artist Jean Ellen Fitzpatrick and photographer Ken Barrett to produce The Houses of St. Augustine, which has become the bestselling book about the Ancient City and its historic buildings.
Demonstrations in St. Augustine in 1963 and 1964 led by Dr.Robert Hayling and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. resulted in the passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, one of the two great legislative accomplishments of the movement.
ACCORD has launched a permanently marked Freedom Trail of historic sites of the civil rights movement that has gained international publicity.
[3] [4] On July 2, 2009, the 45th anniversary of the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, he received the President's Volunteer Service Award from Barack Obama.