At 17-years-old Mimi Jones stood up for what she believed in when she jumped into a Florida swimming pool. In June 1964 in St. Augustin, FL Jones and at least a dozen fellow activists traveled 250 miles by bus from Albany, Ga., to take part in the protest. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. labeled St. Augustine, where the Rev. Andrew Young was brutally beaten, as the most “lawless” city he had worked in according to New York Times Magazine.
Jones who’s name at the time was Mamie Ford was a straight-A student, had just finished her junior year of high school but was already a civil rights veteran. Starting at 15, inspired by her minister, the Rev. Samuel B. Wells, a formidable leader who oversaw teenage activists, she knocked on doors and chatted on porches, encouraging people to register to vote. The teen would taught reading to illiterate Black Georgians so they could pass poll literacy tests. She protested at the Dairy Queen and other establishments that either were segregated or refused to hire Black people.
In the spring of 1964, the Civil Rights bill, which would end segregation in public places and ban employment discrimination, was stalled in the Senate. Hosea Williams, a brash, fearless S.C.L.C. tactician (King affectionately called him “my wild man”) had an idea: a swim-in at the segregated Monson Motor Lodge in St. Augustine. The plan was supposed to draw attention and, hopefully push through the bill. Civil rights activists had been protesting weeks before, and the police had recently arrested King and others for trying to enter the Monson’s whites-only restaurant. The location was prefect for a movement dependent on public sympathy and outrage.
According to the magazine:
The plan was simple: Two white activists would rent a room and then invite Black swimmers as their pool “guests.” But when Williams announced it at a church meeting hall, few Black hands went up. Many of them didn’t know how to swim.
For decades, Black people had been banned from public pools and whites-only beaches. Jones and her 13 siblings, however, grew up near several creeks in southwest Georgia. Jones learned to swim in one and was baptized by Wells in another. Now in St. Augustine, Jones and her younger sister Altomease volunteered.
Around 12:45 p.m. on Thursday, June 18, Jones and a group of Black demonstrators — including 22-year-old J.T. Johnson, who had been a lifeguard in Albany, and Brenda Darten, 21, who was expelled from Albany State College for protesting — climbed out of two cars in front of the pool.
Jones and the others hopped over a low chain fence surrounding the pool and plunged in, joining the two white demonstrators. A few moments later, James Brock, the hotel manager, arrived, in his dark sunglasses, a pencil tie and a brow furrowed in anger. He had just finished waging another battle across the parking lot, shoving rabbis and other protesters in front of his restaurant into waiting police cars.
At the pool, the swimmers chatted and splashed around, ignoring Brock. “The water’s fine, isn’t it?” one of them called out. Brock grabbed two plastic jugs of muriatic acid, a cleaning agent, and began circling the pool, shaking the liquid into it. Drops landed near Jones and Darten’s heads. Jones could feel the fumes in her nose and eyes.
By then a cadre of cops was also trying to rid the pool of Black bodies. A deputy sheriff suggested calling in the dogs. Another police officer smacked his baton against the water, trying to force the swimmers out. Then Henry Billitz, an off-duty cop, jumped into the pool, fully dressed, save for his socks and shoes. He swung at Al Lingo, one of the white protesters; another person hit Peter Shiras, the other white swimmer, as he left the pool. Within minutes the police arrested the entire group. Jones was charged with “deliberate disturbance of the peace,” “malicious trespassing” and “conspiracy.” She was hauled off to jail in her pale checkered one-piece bathing suit with spaghetti straps, soaking wet.
The man seen here pouring cleaning agents into a swimming pool occupied by men and women engaging in a “swim-in”, is James Brock, manager of the Monson Motor Lodge in St. Augustine, Florida. Like most other white business owners at the time, he banned Black people from his establishment. While the protestors floated in a pool of chemicals, off-duty policemen dove in and arrested them.
Jones didn’t know it at the time, but in less than 24 hours photos of her would land on the front pages of The New York Times, The Washington Post and other newspapers. One showed Billitz suspended in midleap above the water and the swimmers’ heads. In another photo Jones held onto Lingo as Brock poured acid behind her, her mouth open wide, as if in midscream.
After seeing the photos, President Lyndon Johnson told an adviser: “Our whole foreign policy and everything else will go to hell over this!” The same day, the Senate voted to pass the Civil Rights bill.
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