Have you ever wondered what life was like in Jacksonville half a century ago? It was 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 1962. The items were compiled from the Jacksonville Public Library’s periodical archives by Staff Writer Max Marbut.
• A permanent injunction calling for full racial integration of all Duval County schools was granted by U.S. District Judge Bryan Simpson.
The four-page order directed the Duval Board of Public Instruction to immediately terminate the practice of applying the criteria of the Florida Pupil Assignment Law for admission, assignment or reassignment to schools other than uniformly and without racial discrimination.
The injunction decree required that the school board submit to the court, on or before Oct. 30, a “detailed and comprehensive plan” for implementing the ordered desegregation of the school system.
Similar injunctions were decreed for the Hillsborough County and Volusia County school boards. Simpson heard all three suits.
“By entering the appropriate injunctive order, but by delaying its effective date for the time being, pending the submission of a complete plan for the total elimination of the biracial aspects of the school systems, I am hopeful that a reasonable start may now be made at the end of the first semester of the upcoming school year, that is to say about the end of January 1963,” Simpson wrote in his decree.
The Duval County Board of Public Instruction indicated it was prepared for a legal struggle against desegregating the school system.
At a meeting two days after Simpson issued the injunction, school board Chairman A. Eugene Stokes said there had been a great deal of public interest in the District Court ruling and the board felt it appropriate to make a statement.
“It has not been determined whether we do or do not have the right to appeal at this time from the order entered by Judge Simpson. As soon as an order is entered from which we do have the right to appeal, we will do so.
“If the appellate court then sustains Judge Simpson, we intend to ask the Supreme Court of the United States to review that decision in certiorari,” Stokes said.
The statement was not presented in the form of a formal motion, but when Stokes finished reading it, board member Charles W. Johnson Jr. rose and said:
“Let the record reflect that all members of the school board concur in the above statement.”
The Duval County school system was the 15th-largest in the nation in 1961, with enrollment of more than 112,000 students. It was the largest in the South still operating under what the court called a “policy of segregation.”
• The Florida Development Commission’s annual report indicated that Jacksonville in 1961 gained 30 new and 10 expanded industrial plants.
B.C. McCaffree, executive secretary of the Committee of 100 of the Jacksonville Area Chamber of Commerce, said the new industrial activity would add as many as 1,496 jobs to the local payroll.
Listed as a “major expansion” with a potential employment increase of 650 jobs was Rawls Bros. Contractors Inc. The firm took over operation of the defunct Merrill-Stevens Drydock and Repair Co. on East Bay Street.
In the five-year summary of expansion, the report showed that Duval County from 1957 through 1961 had a total of 228 new industrial plants with an employment increase of 7,485 jobs.
• Thousands of red fezzes, with a Shriner under every one, appeared in Jacksonville when 9,000 nobles and their wives arrived for the 28th Annual Southeastern Shrine Convention.
The Jacksonville Convention & Tourist Bureau described the gathering as the largest convention ever held in the city.
J. Wendell Fargis, potentate of Morocco Temple and host for the visiting Shriners, said surveys showed the average conventioneer would spend $100 while in a convention city.
“Shriners, however, will average spending about $150 each, and the total here should approach $1 million,” he said.
Fargis said convention participants would be spending their money on accommodations, food, beverages and entertainment as well as souvenirs, clothing and gifts.
The finale of the four-day convention was a parade through Downtown, which attracted a crowd estimated at between 60,000 and 75,000 spectators.
Mayor Haydon Burns, who served as grand marshal, said it was the largest “and certainly the most colorful and spectacular” parade in Jacksonville history. Police said it was the largest crowd ever to watch a parade in the city.
“It was just like a Barnum & Bailey circus, only bigger,” said one spectator.
• Gloria Brody, Jacksonville’s Miss Florida, went to Union Station to greet six other Miss America contestants who arrived aboard an Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Pullman car to begin a tour of the city.
The visiting contestants from Georgia, the District of Columbia, Maryland, New Jersey, New York and South Carolina were welcomed by Mayor Haydon Burns, ACL President W. Thomas Rice, Florida Publishing Co. Vice President Robert Feagin and their escorts for the day, jet pilots from Jacksonville Naval Air Station.
From the train station, a police-escorted motorcade of seven convertibles paraded through the city past the new civic auditorium, City Hall and the Duval County Courthouse and the municipal coliseum.
The procession ended at the ACL Building, where the contestants signed autographs and were guests at a coffee hosted by Mrs. Haydon Burns.
The next stop on the day-long tour was at the Prudential Building for the opening of the Community Chest-United Fund campaign, followed by a cruise on two yachts from Downtown to Jacksonville Naval Air Station. During the short voyage, the young women were served a lunch of fried chicken, potato salad, green beans and apple pie.
When the yachts docked at the base, the station band saluted them by playing “A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody,” “Oh, You Beautiful Doll” and “You Ought to Be in Pictures” as the party walked down the gangplanks.
Brody, first to leave the yacht, greeted Capt. J.R. Compton, NAS commanding officer, with a smile and a kiss.
“Some duty,” said an officer standing nearby.
After touring a jet hangar, the contestants and their escorts were driven to Ponte Vedra for an afternoon of relaxation.
Later, the Miss America candidates attended a reception and dinner dance in their honor at The Inn, hosted by Prime F. Osborn III, ACL vice president and general counsel.
After their day in Jacksonville, the six visiting contestants boarded a plane for Sarasota, where another tour was scheduled.