Mayor responds to governor’s comments on
local race relations
Have you ever wondered what life was like in Jacksonville half a century ago? It may have been a different era of history, culture and politics but there are often parallels between the kind of stories that made headlines then and today. As interesting as the differences may be, so are the similarities. These are some of the top stories from this week in 1960. The items were compiled from the Jacksonville Public Library’s periodical archives by Staff Writer Max Marbut.
• Following the civil unrest which struck Jacksonville during the previous week’s “Ax Handle Saturday,” Mayor Haydon Burns commented on statements by Gov. LeRoy Collins about Jacksonville’s racial problems.
Burns issued a terse statement replying to the governor’s remarks at a Tallahassee news conference that the racial disturbances could be blamed partly on the City’s failure to deal effectively with problems underlying racial tension.
After reading accounts of the news conference, Burns issued this statement:
“I agree with the governor’s statements only wherein he says it is a local responsibility to maintain law and order. This can best be accomplished where state officials withhold their actions and their comments until assistance is requested by local responsible officials.
“There have been no race riots in Jacksonville. There will be none if persons not familiar with local problems and conditions will refrain from imposing their personal theories into the dispute.”
Collins said at his news conference that Jacksonville had failed to provide proper housing and recreational facilities to its 110,000 African-American residents and had refused to set up a biracial committee to seek improved communications between the races.
Burns said he had refused to appoint a biracial committee, partly on the ground that “such groups inevitably lead to integration.”
Collins said everyone in Jacksonville had to accept responsibility for what he termed a “breakdown in human relations which exploded into acts of violence.”
• The gift of a life-size bronze figure by an eminent American sculptor was announced by John Donahoo, chairman of the board of directors of the DeEtte Holden Cummer Museum Foundation.
The figure, Diana, was presented to the museum by the sculptor, Anna Hyatt Huntington of Bethel, Conn. It would be placed in the sculpture garden at the new Cummer Museum of Art on Riverside Avenue.
“Since a sculpture garden is included in the plans for the new Cummer Gallery, the gift from Mrs. Huntington is particularly welcome,” said museum Director Robert Parsons.
The bronze was the first sculpture donated to the museum, but previously announced gifts included paintings by Gilbert Stuart and Antonis Mor from the John C. Myers family of Ohio.
Donahoo said razing of the old Cummer residence at 829 Riverside Ave. was almost complete and construction of the new building was about to begin.
“While Mrs. Cummer’s collection will be shown as a nucleus, ample space is being provided for the growth of the collections,” he said.
He also said that while the income from endowment funds was expected to provide basic maintenance costs, the growth of the collections and the breadth of the Cummer Gallery’s service to the people of Jacksonville would depend on further donations and support from the community.
In connection with a proposed membership program, Donahoo said that Cummer had emphasized on a number of occasions her desire that the museum “should be a community project for all of the people of Jacksonville, and not considered the private philanthropy of one individual.”
• Opposition from the Garden Club of Jacksonville and the Woman’s Club of Jacksonville prompted the City Commission to delay a decision on locating an art museum in Riverside Park.
On Aug. 13, the Jacksonville Art Museum asked the commissioners to donate a suitable site in the park for a new 12,000-square-foot museum to replace the existing inadequate building at 1550 Riverside Ave. In return, museum officials proposed to build a new museum with funds collected in the community, pay the operating costs and turn the building over to the City.
A committee organized after the proposal was made said a suitable site would be in the northeast area of the park with frontage on Park Street between Fisk Street and the Expressway.
At the meeting, Mrs. Bert Reid, president of the Garden Club, said the club’s presiding board had voted to oppose use of the park for museum purposes. She said the club stood ready to help the museum find a new home, but did not favor location of a museum or any other organization in a City park.
The Woman’s Club’s opposition was expressed in a letter from its corresponding secretary-treasurer, Mrs. Howard G. Croom. The letter stated the club’s executive board had approved a resolution saying the club was “unalterably opposed” to granting of City park property to a private group, such as the museum.
“We suggest that the members of the Jacksonville Art Museum and the Cummer Gallery of Art work out an arrangement whereby both buildings might be used under one sponsorship. This would eliminate the necessity of securing additional property,” the resolution stated.
Mrs. Otis Seawright, past president of the Garden Club, came out in favor of the museum location in Riverside Park. She said that some members of the club had not been polled on the question and many of then did not agree with the board’s action. She also said that the Florida Federation of Garden Clubs built its own state headquarters in a city-owned park in Winter Park.
• Edward W. Lane Jr. was elected vice president and assistant to the president of the Atlantic National Bank, announced J. Taliaferro Lane, chairman of the board of directors of the bank.
The new bank officer, whose father, Edward W. Lane, had founded the bank, had been a partner in the law firm of McCarthy, Lane & Adams since 1941.
• An amateur archaeologist found an unexploded projectile, apparently of Civil War vintage, in spoil dredged from the St. Johns River near St. Johns Bluff Road.
Charles Potter, 20, of 54 W. 32nd St., discovered the 87-pound artifact sticking out of the sand.
“I guessed it was a Civil War shell because it did not have a projecting fuse like the Spanish shells do,” he said. “The nose had a hole in it filled with something that looked like plaster, so I figured it was still live.”
A friend of Potter’s, W.M. Jones of 6211 Old Gainesville Road, asked the ordnance department at Jacksonville Naval Air Station to pick up the 18-inch projectile and deactivate it.
Gunner’s Mate First Class D.D. Allen said the fuse, which was behind the plaster, had ignited after the shell was fired but for some reason did not touch off the black powder charge. A second charge of ammonium nitrate, called a burster charge, also was intact but was wet from having been immersed for so long.
Jones did some research and discovered the shell was fired from a Parrott gun, a cast iron muzzle-loading cannon named for its inventor.
Jones said history books indicated the shell might have been fired on Sept. 11, 1882, when five Union gunboats attacked a Confederate battery on the St. Johns Bluff.
Potter said he planned to present his find to authorities at the Castillo de San Marcos National Monument in St. Augustine.
• The big rush for drivers licenses began Thursday when more than 230,000 Duval County motorists began renewing their permits.
County Judge McKenney J. Davis said his staff at the courthouse, augmented by clerks supplied by the Junior Chamber of Commerce, would be ready to issue the new permits, all of which had to be renewed in a 30-day period. Clerks were located at major shopping areas throughout the county and at several department stores Downtown to expedite the process.
Davis urged drivers to take advantage of the early renewal opportunities to avoid the rush at the end of the month.
Operator’s licenses were $1.25 and chauffeur’s licenses were $2.25. Florida licensees were required to pay a $1 penalty for renewals after Sept. 30 or take a new driving test conducted by the Florida Highway Patrol.