Ax Handle Saturday, August 27, 1960: The Jacksonville Sit-Ins and Their Aftermath

On August 27, 1960, white men carrying axe handles and baseball bats met NAACP Youth Council members sitting in at downtown Jacksonville lunch counters, and many of the youths were hurt (Florida Division of Historical Resources).

The state historical marker in Hemming Park names two stores: the W.T. Grant Department Store, then at the corner of West Adams and North Main Streets, and Woolworth's Five and Ten Cent Store on Hogan Street across from Hemming Park (state marker). It counts 40 demonstrators from the Jacksonville Branch of the NAACP and 150 attackers, and says some of the youths found safety at the adjacent Snyder Memorial Methodist Church. The marker stands at Monroe Street and North Hogan Street and was sponsored by the Jacksonville Historical Society and the Florida Department of State.

The National Park Service account begins earlier that morning, when an interracial group led by high school student Rodney Hurst took seats at the Grant's lunch counter and was verbally abused and spat on by other customers (NPS). When the store refused service and closed, the young people walked out into a mob that included Ku Klux Klan members and men from the White Citizens Councils, armed with bats and wooden ax handles. The park service says the mob then began attacking any Black person it saw on the street, and that nearby, in what is now James Weldon Johnson Park, Klan members began a coordinated attack on the peaceful protesters.

Last verified: October 18, 2026, against the state marker text for Hemming Park, the NPS network listing and 2020 release, the 2018 Jacksonville City Council task force report and the House resolution text.

The Jacksonville Youth Council of the NAACP organized the sit-ins, with more than 80 mostly high school students taking part (City Council Task Force on Civil Rights History).

The timeline in the Jacksonville City Council's 2018 civil rights task force report names the student leaders as Rodney L. Hurst, Alton Yates and Marjorie Meeks. That timeline says the students had been sitting in for two weeks before August 27 (task force report). Their adviser was Rutledge Pearson, an 8th grade American history teacher who later became president of the Jacksonville Branch NAACP, president of the Florida State Conference of Branches of the NAACP and a member of the NAACP National Board. The state marker gives his dates as 1929 to 1967 and calls him a local civil rights leader (state marker).

The National Park Service describes Pearson as a social studies teacher and prominent NAACP leader in Jacksonville who created the direct action campaign, inspired by the lunch counter sit-ins in North Carolina the previous month, believing direct action was the best way to challenge segregation in the city (NPS).

Jacksonville police did not step in at first: the National Park Service says victims begged nearby officers for help and the police never intervened, before the city sent 200 officers to finally stop the violence (NPS).

The park service calls that early failure to intervene a chief cause of the widespread violence in downtown Jacksonville, and says it brought state NAACP leaders to the city to advise local officials on how to prevent retributive violence (NPS). The House resolution of 2020 puts it in similar terms, stating that it was reported that authorities stood idly by while the young protesters were left defenseless (H. Res. 1088).

The committee that negotiated the settlement was not a city body. The Jacksonville City Council task force timeline records that a biracial committee on civil rights was appointed by the NAACP, the white and Black Jacksonville ministerial alliances and the white business community after Mayor Haydon Burns refused to appoint one officially, and that the committee met at Snyder Memorial Methodist Church (task force report).

Downtown Jacksonville lunch counters were integrated in 1961 after the biracial committee reached an agreement, the City Council task force timeline records (task force report).

The pressure began the day after the attack. At a mass meeting at St. Paul's A.M.E. Church, the NAACP and those present approved a Youth Council resolution calling for a boycott of downtown Jacksonville stores (task force report). The National Park Service adds that the Chamber of Commerce, fearing the boycott's effect on the local economy, met with NAACP officials and Black organizations until a resolution was reached (NPS).

The 1961 agreement was put into practice by two of the original leaders: Youth Council President Rodney Hurst and Secretary Marjorie Meeks ate at the Woolworth lunch counters for a week, after which every white lunch counter in Jacksonville's downtown department stores was integrated (task force report).

The state marker sums up the decade that followed: lunch counters were integrated, Duval County public schools began to desegregate, four African Americans were elected to City Council, and segregation of public accommodations including parks, restrooms and water fountains ended (state marker). The marker calls the 1960 conflict a turning point, though not the beginning of the Jacksonville civil rights movement.

The site is marked by the state historical marker in Hemming Park and by the 2020 federal designation of James Weldon Johnson Park in the African American Civil Rights Network (NPS news release).

On August 18, 2020, Representative Lawson of Florida and co-sponsors submitted House Resolution 1088, urging the Secretary of the Interior to add the Jacksonville park to the Network; it was referred to the Committee on Natural Resources (H. Res. 1088). On August 27, 2020, the 60th anniversary, Interior Secretary David L. Bernhardt designated the park as the 31st addition to the Network (NPS).

That federal program has since lapsed. The National Park Service network page says Congress has not reauthorized the African American Civil Rights Network, which expired on January 8, 2025, so it is not taking applications (NPS). The park's existing listing page for Jacksonville is still online (NPS).

Locally, Jacksonville City Council President Anna Brosche introduced legislation in February 2018 creating a Task Force on Civil Rights History, which passed unanimously; its 27 citizen members issued a final report in June 2018 recommending a Jacksonville civil rights trail with visible markers and participation in the U.S. Civil Rights Trail (task force report).

The state marker, the National Park Service, the Jacksonville City Council task force and the House resolution agree on the date and the ax handles, but give different counts and names, and none settles the difference (state marker).

The NPS also describes nearly 3,000 people demonstrating peacefully in Hemming Plaza that day and calls it the largest civil rights demonstration in Jacksonville history (NPS); the House resolution likewise calls August 27, 1960 the largest civil rights demonstration in the city's history (H. Res. 1088). The House text names Pearson as Jacksonville NAACP President, while the task force timeline says he would later become president of the Jacksonville Branch, giving no year for that office (task force report).