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 1964. The items were compiled from the Jacksonville Public Library’s periodical archives by Staff Writer Max Marbut.
• William Sterling Rosencrans, 30, described as a “slightly built, phlegmatic Indiana itinerant laborer,” admitted to U.S. Judge Bryan Simpson that he set off the dynamite bomb that destroyed the home of an African-American child attending a previously all-white school.
The admission came after Rosencrans pleaded guilty to two counts of an indictment charging him and five local Ku Klux Klan leaders with depriving the 6-year-old student of his constitutional rights granted him under a school integration injunction issued by Simpson.
The Feb. 16 explosion at the home occupied by the child and his mother caused a refrigerator to be blown through the roof, but there were no injuries.
Two days later, the five local men identified as leaders of the Ku Klux Klan, were arrested by FBI agents.
Four of the suspects were taken into custody in Jacksonville. The fifth, a previous resident of Jacksonville, was arrested in Smyrna, Tenn., and was held there.
The arrests were announced in Washington, D.C., by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.
Rosencrans was held under $25,000 bond while the each of the other suspects was held under $10,000 bond.
FBI Special Agent D.K. Brown of the Jacksonville office said the investigation was continuing.
• The City Council was advised it had no legal power to establish ordinances to enforce civil rights nor could it legally take steps in formulating anti-discrimination policies as they might affect private organizations.
The legal opinion came at a meeting at which state Rep. George Stallings Jr. of Duval County called for an investigation of possible Communist influence in Jacksonville racial demonstrations.
The opinion on council’s powers regarding civil rights laws came from City Attorney William Madison and Special Council Attorney Harry Fozzard. The opinion was in reply to a proposed resolution calling for a biracial committee.
The biracial committee proposal had been offered by Rutledge Pearson, president of the Jacksonville chapter of the NAACP. It called on council to establish as a matter of official city policy, the discouragement of racial discrimination in public accommodations, such as hotels and restaurants, and to establish a commission to investigate the possibilities of establishing an anti-discrimination ordinance.
• A man dying of an incurable blood disease in a Jacksonville hospital ate a $325 watermelon.
The patient, who had been losing weight at the rate of almost a pound each day for a couple of months, expressed a desire for a slice of watermelon.
Because global overnight fruit transport was unheard of in 1964, the fruit was not due in local markets for a few more weeks.
Realizing the man probably would not live that long, a friend set out to fulfill the patient’s desire.
The friend knew the Watermelon Growers and Distributors Association was having its convention at the Robert Meyer Hotel, so he concluded the organization should have a few melons on hand.
In fact, the group had a dozen or so watermelons, which were auctioned during a banquet for $100-$325, with the money going into the organization’s treasury.
When the friend called the association’s headquarters at the hotel, most of the convention delegates were heading home. The highest-bidding melon winner, however, was still at the hotel.
When he heard the story of the dying man who wanted a slice of watermelon, he immediately sent it to the hospital. The friend offered to pay for the fruit, but the man refused to accept a cent for it.
The friend didn’t learn until later that the watermelon cost $325.
• John Canarina, conductor of the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra, was one of four selected from hundreds of applicants for the 1964 American Conductors’ Project at the Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore.
The project was an 11-week training course for young orchestra conductors that offered the opportunity to conduct some of the nation’s largest symphony orchestras. Along with the selection, Canarina received a $2,500 grant from the Ford Foundation for living expenses.
Canarina was recommended for the program by Leonard Bernstein, New York Philharmonic conductor, with whom he worked as assistant before coming to Jacksonville in 1962.
• A city motorcycle police officer captured a suspect minutes after the man, using a toy pistol, took $129 from the Florida Theatre cashier.
Booked at the city jail on a charge of armed robbery was Byrd Harrison Breeden Jr., 28, who said he was a student at the University of North Carolina.
The cashier, Claudia Fortwengler, said she was counting money about 8:30 p.m. when a man walked up to the ticket window and handed her a note that read, “This is a stick-up. Hand over the cash.”
Fortwengler said she asked the man if he was kidding. He then pointed the toy — fashioned after a .32-caliber automatic pistol — at her.
“I told him that gun is not real,” Fortwengler said.
“He said that it was and to hurry up and hand over the money,” she said. “I would have sworn on a Bible that it was a toy, but I didn’t want to take a chance.”
The bandit fled on foot and usher Dean Hoy, 17, a junior at Andrew Jackson High School, began chasing him.
Hoy said he caught the man at the corner of Bay and Main streets and tried to force him to return to the theater.
“Then he pulled the gun and I just backed off. It looked real to me,” said Hoy.
The man then started running toward the Main Street Bridge. Patrolman R.L. Crawford apprehended him at Main and Water streets.
• Records in the office of Circuit Court Clerk Morgan Slaughter indicated that $11,651,933 worth of real estate changed hands in Duval County during February 1964, the lowest monthly total since January 1963.
The value was calculated by state tax stamps affixed to the 1,936 deeds recorded by Slaughter’s office in February.
The previous monthly low was $10,296,550 recorded in January 1963.
Totals for January and February 1964 showed substantial decreases from the $26,616, 383 valuation indicated on 4,128 deeds in December, the highest month for 1963.
Slaughter said December customarily was the biggest month of the year because deeds had to be on record before Jan. 1 to claim homestead exemption for the following year. That caused a last-minute rush to the clerk’s office. Usually, January and February were slow months.
• More than 10,000 people received doses of Type II Sabin oral polio vaccine in the finale of Duval County’s program to eradicate the disease. Vaccinations for residents began in November.
The makeup clinics at 10 public schools pushed the total number of Types I, II and III vaccinations to 1,125,000.