Hotel Owner Pouring Acid in the Pool While Black People Swim in It, Ca. 1964

GODREKR · #1 ● 06-26-2014, 06:34 PM

From James Brock's obituary:

Longtime hotel owner James E. "Jimmy" Brock, 85, died Tuesday at his St. Augustine home.

Brock became the focus of national attention during the Civil Rights movement in 1964 after pouring muriatic acid into the whites-only swimming pool at his Monson Motor Lodge after several young black men jumped into the pool.

Muriatic acid is undiluted hydrochloric acid and is used in the cleaning of masonry surfaces such as pools. But what people heard was the word "acid."

A photographer caught the action, and that photo, as well as one of police officer Henry Billitz going into the water after the blacks and whites in the pool, was sent out worldwide.

Brock would not talk about the incident publicly, but it remains part of the lore of St. Augustine.

Although many of his contemporaries are gone, others remember Brock as more the victim in the incident. One moment of temper led to an unwanted legacy.

"Jimmy kind of caught the brunt of it. He was a nice guy," said Eddy Mussallem, a fellow hotelier and longtime friend. "They had to pick a motel, so they picked Jimmy's motel. I always told him he did a foolish thing."

Civil rights activists who have returned to St. Augustine in recent years say the pool incident was a planned action.

The swim-in was part of protests planned by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Brock would not allow King and others to eat at the Monson restaurant on June 11, 1964, and he had them arrested for trespassing, St. Augustine historian David Nolan explained in 2006.

King, who was jailed, wrote to a group of rabbis meeting in Savannah, asking them to help the demonstrators draw attention, including a planned swim-in at the Monson pool, which was located on the bayfront. On June 17 a dozen rabbis arrived, knelt in front of the restaurant and began to pray to distract Brock while the men jumped into the pool, Nolan said.

Dr. David R. Colburn in his book on St. Augustine "Racial Change and Community Crisis" reported the civil rights campaign in St. Augustine "had begun to stagnate."

King and his aides staged his arrest at the motel in order to "rekindle support and enthusiasm for the movement," wrote Colburn, University of Florida history professor and executive director of the Reubin Askew Institute on Politics and Society. Congress was working to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and King needed the spotlight on the movement.

Brock found himself pressured by civil rights groups and militant whites fighting integration.

By July, white militants and Ku Klux Klan members carrying signs marched in front of desegregated establishments, including the Monson. Brock, who was facing financial disaster, finally agreed to join the segregated list to make the marchers go away.

Within a few days, he desegregated the Monson again after a judge ordered restaurants and motels to serve blacks. For that, his restaurant was hit with two Molotov cocktails, Colburn wrote.

After the civil rights battle moved on, Brock continued to run the Monson Motor Lodge, later renamed the Monson Bayfront Resort, until selling it in the early part of this century to Kanti Patel, a St. Augustine hotelier. Patel tore down the structure and built the Riverfront Hilton Hotel with a historic facade. It opened in time for Super Bowl XXXIX in 2005.

A native of Benton, Tenn., Brock served in the U.S. Navy during World War II. He came to St. Augustine after the war and ended up buying the Monson.

Brock was a member of Ancient City Baptist Church.

Friends remember him as a good businessman and a booster for St. Augustine tourism.

Mussallem said that, for 45 years, he, Brock and Pierre Thompson helped oversee the Blessing of the Fleet, hosting parties and providing food and rooms for the Navy and Coast Guard members involved.

In his years in St. Augustine, Brock was actively involved in a number of community organizations including the Rotary Club, Masonic Lodge Shrine Club and Community Chest United Fund. He was president of the board of a self-insured insurance company.

"He was one of those who quietly did his part for everybody," Mussallem said.