Orlando in the Summer of 1963 – “Swimming Mix Rejected Here”
This is the fifth 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.
As the early weeks in the month of July, 1963 had demonstrated, Orlando’s elite did not quite have a handle on the issues involved in “Mixing” the races. But they can – perhaps – be credited with keeping a lid on events. For speaking out in favor of change beneficial to Orlando’s Black Community, progressive leader George Stuart Sr., got hate calls and had to change his phone number. And Black “leaders” did not get any kinder treatment, because they had counseled “patience” in which young blacks were not interested. The NAACP Youth met in secret at Mt. Zion Baptist Church and insisted on pressing forward, no matter how much praise the Sentinel Negro Edition gave to the City’s “recreation programs,” they weren’t buying. Young people were leading; elders following.
The Sentinel was schizophrenic in its editorial position. While the front page cartoon on July 19th showed the need for federal monies for rebuilding of Black neighborhoods, the paper was adamantly opposed to integration under pressure. Days earlier, the paper ran an editorial cartoon of a murderous club wielding “Headless Horseman” labeled “Riotous Intimidation” riding a dark horse, “Civil Rights Campaign.” This was the view of many in Orlando when Black kids wanted to go swimming in White pools.
The nation also was splitting. The National Governor’s Association was meeting in Miami Beach and the Governors divided on regional lines over race, as the Republican Party moved rapidly to the right, embracing the States’ rights position of Goldwater. Florida’s Governor told a Committee of the Congress that the Ninth Amendment (reserved powers) prevented the Federal Government from intervening in the states to ensure public access to accommodations. On Educational TV, national black leaders, King, Young, Foreman, Wilkins and Farmer touted the coming March on Washington and they said that President Kennedy and Congress were moving too slowly and had forgotten the real troubles of the South in an effort to accommodate Southern politicians.
It is hard to put a modern mind into the attitudes of fifty years ago. The key fight then was about allowing people of all races to go where they wished. So long as a business was open to the “public,” businesses had to be open to ALL the public, not just white people. By the end of July, the Sentinel was praising and quoting Democratic Governor Farris Bryant: “It would be a tragic mistake if we tried to purchase equality for minorities and as part of the price gave up freedom for all.” The paper supported the continued rights of businesses and public accommodations to reject Blacks, just for being Black.
In Kissimmee, there were inter-racial beatings of Blacks and Ocala, where shotgun wielding young people fired on a prominent Black dentist’s house and fifteen Black teenagers were arrested for distributing flyers, under the state “publication” laws. Things were tense, even nationally. The planned August 28th March on Washington was making many people nervous, with printed predictions of bloodshed by Black newspapers magnified to huge headlines in the Sentinel.
In the week since black youth had tried to integrate the White pool in Colonialtown, all the city pools and swimming beaches had been closed, and remained closed for the rest of the Summer. The City Council met and re-met with itself and with its bi-racial advisory committee on the 15th, 16th, and 17th of July. Mayor Carr, back from vacation but missing his strongest progressive supporter was outvoted, 3 to 1. In a front page headlined story, “Integration Moved Nixed,” the Sentinel reported that the City Council had done nothing about opening the pools.
Much verbiage went into the statements. “It is anticipated that they will continue to be utilized in much the same manner as heretofore….to meet the requirements of residents of adjacent areas.” The Council, afraid of white backlash, threatened “assignment of participants to specific areas”…“if undue overcrowding of certain facilities should result from unexpected shifting of usage from one area to another.” “Council refused to be pushed into mixing two swimming pools and two beaches this summer, but extended the possibility that total integration may come next year [in 1964].”
The “Bi-racial Committee” was part of the deal. These leaders, as the Sentinel noted on the last day of July, “pledged to try to get the Negro community to cooperate in limited use of facilities that formerly were all white.” In 1963, “there is not enough time to work out a program of planned integration.”
The City Council had, however, voted to allow Blacks access to Health Department examining rooms, other parks and rest rooms in Orlando downtown shops. This was regarded as radical progress and buried well below the headline, “Swimming Mix Rejected Here.”
The battle grounds were shifting, from pools to schools. Front page Sentinel reporting on the pools was joined by front page reporting on a gathering of inter-denominational white religious groups at the Cherry Plaza Hotel. They met to plan private schools to replace public schools so as to avoid “mixing.” Also, in late July 1963, the Sentinel reported that the first Black student would enroll at Winter Park High School. The paper also reported that the student was Barbara King and that she lived on West Lyman Avenue (so much for student privacy rights in 1963). She would attend making her “the first Negro admitted to any of the county’s white high schools, though Negros have attended junior high schools.” The story, went on to report that she would remain the lone Negro in any county white school, as it was “too late now for any others to seek transfer.” There was going to be more action in Orlando in 1963 in August.
Fifth in a series of articles on Orlando civil rights struggle
