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.
• Mayor Haydon Burns asked for time on local radio and television stations for what he called a “message on community relations.”
His request was in response to several days of demonstrations where groups of African-Americans sought service in Downtown restaurants and hotels and established picket lines when service was denied.
When he went on the air, Burns pledged that peace would prevail in Jacksonville and that his office would take full responsibility for seeing that it did.
“I do not intend my comments to constitute a threat, but rather an understanding, a request for cooperation. My remarks are motivated by certain actions of a certain few individuals, or organized groups of opposing forces.
“Certain actions by self-appointed leaders of both groups have provoked the majority of the citizens of both races to the degree I feel this statement is absolutely necessary –– as a warning to some, but more especially as an assurance to the 99 percent and a fraction of our citizens who love their city and who have, and want no problems with their fellow citizens,” Burns said.
At the conclusion of his address, Burns swore in the city’s 496 firefighters as special police to help ensure that order would be maintained.
• Four members of the Ku Klux Klan who had been held for more than a week in the Duval County jail on charges of firebombing a home were released on bond.
The bonds were reduced from $15,000 each to $5,000 each by U.S. District Judge Joseph Lieb.
The men were being held on charges of violating the civil and injunctive rights of 6-year-old Donald Godfrey, who was the only African-American student at Lackawanna Elementary School. The home he lived in with his mother had been severely damaged Feb. 16 with dynamite, but neither the boy nor his mother was injured.
The accused men entered pleas of not guilty to the charges.
The fifth defendant in the case, William Sterling Rosencrans, admitted at his arraignment to placing the homemade bomb underneath the home. He was being held on $25,000 bond, which he was unable to post.
• “Please don’t litter county rights of ways with political signs” was the gist of a request from the Board of County Commissioners to political candidates.
Commissioner Lem Merrett brought up the subject, describing the signs as “eyesores.” He said he wondered if anything could be done about the signs.
“They’re even beginning to put political signs on stop signs, believe it or not,” Merrett said.
County Attorney J. Henry Blount advised the board that among other issues, the signs on county rights of way were a distraction to motorists and therefore a safety hazard.
“I think you have the power to take them down any time they are put up there,” he said.
Commissioner Bob Harris suggested that candidates be asked not to erect signs on county rights of way and be advised that if signs were erected, they would be removed.
“It’s not fair to the taxpayers for county crews to be assigned to that sort of thing,” said Harris.
Himself a candidate, Harris said he had no intention of installing any signs on rights of way or on trees.
In addition to asking candidates and their workers not to place signs on rights of way, the board also requested that signs be taken down as soon as possible after elections.
• Witnessed by elected officials, the Board of Library Trustees and members of the Friends of the Jacksonville Public Library, ground was ceremonially broken Downtown at the site of the new $2.5 million public library along Adams, Forsyth and Ocean streets.
Mayor Haydon Burns, City Council President Clyde Cannon and city Finance Commissioner Dallas Thomas turned the first earth.
Before the ceremony at the construction site, the Friends sponsored a luncheon at the George Washington Hotel at which Burns was the principal speaker.
He said the establishment of the new Downtown library and the new Wilder Park branch were evidence of community progress.
Burns paid tribute to the efforts of the Friends and to the special site selection committee for the Wilder Park branch. He said without the work of the two groups, the city would not have been able to accomplish the library expansion.
Burns said the availability of library services was “a part of living that should not be denied to any citizen.”
He said as well as providing a cultural center, an addition to Jacksonville’s urban development and a reservoir of knowledge and pleasurable reading, the new facilities would be a source of research for young people of high school and college age who were seeking to further their education.
• Jacksonville Beach City Council member W.F. Harrington, who had been attempting to slow the pace of redevelopment in the business zone, raised a new question of ethics.
He told the rest of the council he didn’t approve of the architect who had been retained to proceed with preliminary plans for completion of the second phase of the project.
Harrington said a member of the building committee, whose job it was to approve plans, was employed by the architect, Francis B. Sheetz of Atlanta.
“I question if there isn’t a conflict of interest,” said Harrington.
He didn’t identify the committee member, but it was clear he referred to W.L. Tribble, a mechanical engineer and chairman of the planning committee.
The other members of the building committee were Mayor William Wilson and City Manager Walter Johnson.
Wilson denied any conflict of interest on the part of Tribble and referred to his many years of service with the city.
Wilson called Harrington’s charges “insulting and degrading.”
• Jacksonville Postmaster James Workman said the city’s largest U.S. Mail customers were responding well to the new ZIP code program.
“Jacksonville is rated very high in its cooperative reaction to this program, initiated last July 1, and which is designed to expedite both the handling and delivery of mail,” he said.
Workman said the results were becoming “increasingly apparent” in terms of postal operations.
“Of course, it is too early to produce statistics on man-hours saved, or minutes and hours in delivery time saved by the application of the coded mail program. Obvious proof that the code program is working is the fact that while we have experienced a substantial increase in post office business this year over last year, we are doing the job of mail handling with the same manpower we had before,” he said.
Post office representatives had contacted 275 of the largest mailers in North Florida to explain the code program and urge its use. Workman said those firms accounted for 48 percent of the mail originating in Jacksonville.
Of the firms contacted, 270 were participating in the program, and 34 had completely converted their addressing systems to the code.