From eastern Tennessee, High moved to Florida after his service in World War II.

Robert King High was born in 1924 in Flat Creek, Tennessee, where his father was a carpenter and farmer.

With his campaign unable to afford the billboards and television advertising that other candidates were using, High supporters stood outside the Orange Bowl with home-made campaign banners on every Friday night that the University of Miami football team played a home game.

High placed second out of five candidates in the primary, and beat the incumbent mayor, Randy Christmas, in the runoff.

He dressed in old clothes and, again accompanied by a reporter, bought bolita (an illegal lottery) tickets on the street.

High won re-election in 1959, and was joined by a slate of newly elected, reform-minded city commissioners.

[6] High's reform efforts drew national attention, and he was named one of a hundred outstanding young Americans by Life magazine.

Previous practice had been for each commissioner to give a share of the city's insurance to whomever they chose as a form of patronage.

High also led a statewide campaign to force Florida Power & Light to lower its rates.

High also led a fight to force the Florida East Coast Railway to pay the arrears in its assessed property taxes.

[8] High spoke Spanish well, and made a number of goodwill trips to Latin America.

High worked to accommodate 200,000 Cuban refugees in Miami, where they became in integral part of the city.

[13] Although he had received death threats to prevent his speaking in Pensacola, High told a crowd there that "Segregation is wrong.

For the transition, the governor elected in 1964 would serve only two years, but would be eligible to run again in 1966 for a full four-year term.

The Democratic-dominated legislature at the turn of the century had passed a new constitution that disenfranchised most blacks, a status that was enforced until after passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

[22] High came in second out of five contenders in the Democratic primary, but lost the run-off to Jacksonville mayor Haydon Burns, who was elected as governor.

One showed a pregnant black woman in a rocker, with the caption, "I went all the way with Robert King High".

A photograph of High playing pickup football with some black newsboys was widely circulated.

Scott Kelly, a conservative politician from rural northern Florida, who came in third in the primary, agreed to endorse High for the runoff, but did not plan to actively campaign.

Calling the Burns charge "The Big Lie", Kelly actively campaigned for High in the runoff.

[33][34] High won the run-off by a sizable margin, getting 43% of the vote in Burns' hometown of Jacksonville, Florida.

[35] Burns refused to support High, and several of his Florida Cabinet officers (who were elected) actively campaigned for Claude Kirk, the Republican candidate for governor.

[36] In September Don Petit, a moderate liberal and High's campaign manager, quit over differences with Scott Kelly.

A new handout from a "Committee for Integrity in Government" showed a cartoon of High with the caption, "Black power is with you 100 percent, Bob, let's march."