Facing History: Ax Handle Saturday
I was 13 years old, watching television on a hot August afternoon in our home on the south side of Jacksonville, Florida. The station I was watching overrode the program with breaking news. Violence had broken out downtown, racial violence that escalated rapidly. There was a warning for everyone to stay away from downtown due to the violence. Not much more was said. I briefly thought about going, to see what was going on, but my mother nixed that idea. And, considering the nature of mob violence, that was probably wise. But I learned all I could about it, which was difficult for a while, as news of the event was suppressed in Jacksonville. The city administration of Mayor Haydon Burns, in those days, reflected his segregationist opinions. Tidbits of information about the violence leaked out, passed by word of mouth, almost like a clandestine samizdat , facts passed around an underground network in the old totalitarian Soviet Union....