Orlando in the Summer of 1963 – “The Summer of Schools and Pools”
This is the second in a series of articles focusing on the momentous local changes and events in the civil rights struggle, fifty years ago in Orlando, by Doug Head, former Orange County Democratic Party Chair.
And a child will lead them…..
Fifty years ago this month, America’s Civil Rights movement was lurching toward the climactic August March on Washington with some remarkable events. On the evening of June 11, President Kennedy addressed the nation in a televised speech in which he said, “It ought to be possible, in short, for every American to enjoy the privileges of being American without regard to his race or his color.” As he pointed out, “This afternoon, following a series of threats and defiant statements, the presence of Alabama National Guardsmen was required on the University of Alabama to carry out the …admission of two clearly qualified young Alabama residents who happened to have been born Negro.” Kennedy did not know that early the following morning, June 12, Medgar Evers, the NAACP leader in Mississippi would be shot dead in his driveway, as he arrived home can carried in T-shirts which read, “Jim Crow Must Go.” Nor did he know that in Orlando, just before he spoke, a “bi-racial committee” had been appointed to work on issues, or to give that appearance. But Kennedy had issued the call for Civil Rights legislation.
The Orlando Committee was announced by Mayor Carr on the 11th, but then became strangely silent.
Meanwhile, nationally, all sorts of things happened as civil rights legislation was contemplated and politicians maneuvered. A few Black leaders called, in late June, for a march on Washington. Kennedy went off to Berlin and Dublin and Rome to a hero’s welcome and powerful Senators of the south and their allies called for a “go slow” approach. Politics changed. Within the Republican Party a wide rift opened as Barry Goldwater carved out his position of “State’s Rights” and developed the “Southern Strategy” and George Romney joined civil rights marchers in Michigan. Vice-President Johnson wrestled with Southern Democrats following a Memorial day speech at the Gettysburg battlefield in which he had laid out his remarkable progressive position: “The Negro today asks justice. We do not answer him–we do not answer those who lie beneath this soil–when we reply to the Negro by asking, “Patience.””
The Orlando Sentinel ran a cartoon on the 20th of a speeding run-away car, smashing road signs labeled “Property Rights,” and “Privacy Rights” and “Personal Rights.” The rogue vehicle was labeled “Civil Rights.” And the Sentinel letters were filled with demands that the federal Government go slow or stop its intervention in the South.
Remarkably, nothing was printed in the local newspaper about any local action. The battles seemed far away. The “pink pages”, (a Sentinel “Negro Supplement” printed with a pink header and appearing on Mondays), covered graduations of Black students from local black schools and the usual photographs of Black society figures. Nothing indicated that there was any issue going on in Orlando. The Bi-racial committee which had agreed to meet on the 25th was apparently meeting in secret as it was not covered at all.
But late in June, a remarkable incident occurred. And it made the Sentinel’s second front page on June 26th. “Winter Park White Children Integrate Pool,” read the headline page, with a photograph of the kids in swim trunks and towels. “Winter Park’s only municipally owned swimming pool, the West Side Pool, was integrated yesterday when five unidentified white children entered the waters and dressing rooms of the previously all-Negro facility.”
Startled, the Sentinel reported, “The white children, of both sexes, used all facilities of the pool in an unselfconscious manner and aroused no signs of resentment or even curiosity from the Negro children….they mixed completely with the other children of their ages, about 6-10 years old.”
Law enforcement investigated: “Police Chief Carl D. Buchanan went to the pool and asked the white children if they had their parent’s permission to swim there. They told him they had permission. He left saying nothing further.”
It is worth noting that, the previous year, a group of mostly white contributors had, contributed to the fund to build the pool and the City of Winter Park had matched those funds. Winter Park had other private pools, but this municipal pool was the only one run by the city’s “Negro personnel.” The Sentinel did not report further on motivation or the names of the children, outside of the photographs. Pools and beaches in Orlando remained segregated and a young black man drowned that weekend in an unregulated Lake Apopka swimming site.
The following weeks were to be much more dramatic in Orlando, as the Summer of Schools and Pools played out.
Second of a series of articles on Orlando civil rights struggle.
I have lived in Orlando for 51 years and I remember when the state office building in Winter Park (just torn down), had four bathrooms–one for white women, one for white men, one for black men, and one for black women. I also remember going to Howard Junior High School. When I was in the 7th grade, it was the first year that black children went there as well. On the first day of school, the City of Orlando sent a squad car over to the school and was parked in front all day long. Nothing happened.
Orlando has changed into a mean place and the aura of harmony is a scam. Thank you for this valuable piece. Sadly, most people who live here won’t care.
The Youth Council of the NAACP conducted sit-ins and other civil rights demonstrations in Orlando from 1960-62. The first arrest was at Stroud’s drug store on the corner of Church & orange in the old Firs t National Bank building. There were about 9 of us student from Jones High School, mostly girls.