Alliyah Edwards✨

In 1964, a white hotel manager named James Brock poured acid into a whites-only pool at the Monson Motor Lodge after Black activists jumped into the water during a "swim-in" protest. —On June 18, 1964, motel manager James Brock poured muriatic acid into the swimming pool at the Monson Motor Lodge in St. Augustine, Florida, in an attempt to force out black swimmers who were protesting the hotel's whites-only policy. The incident was part of the St. Augustine Movement, a civil rights campaign that used nonviolent protests to challenge segregation in the city. Brock's actions were met with outrage from the civil rights community, and they helped to galvanize support for the St. Augustine Movement. The incident also led to a national debate about racism and segregation. The Monson Motor Lodge is no longer in operation, but the site of the pool where Brock poured the acid is now a memorial to the St. Augustine Movement. The memorial includes a plaque that tells the story of the incident and its significance. 🖋️if you love our content, please consider supporting our page on AfricanArchives.Support (follow the ko-fi page too for weekly posts roundup) #blackhistorymonth

In 1938, Lloyd Gaines filed a lawsuit after being denied admission to the University of Missouri Law School in 1935 because he was black. The Court ruled in his favor & required Missouri to admit him or set up a black law school. He disappeared 3 months later never to be found. —Lloyd Lionel Gaines was born to the Gaines family in northern Mississippi in 1911. One of eleven children, seven of whom survived illness and accident, he moved with his widowed mother and siblings to St. Louis after the premature death of their father. They found a better, although not easy, life for themselves in Missouri. Gaines excelled in his studies graduating as valedictorian in 1931 from Vashon High School. At Lincoln University in Jefferson City, he graduated with honors and was President of the senior class, while participating in many extra-curricular activities and working to pay for his schooling. Despite his outstanding scholastic record, the University of Missouri School of Law denied Gaines admittance in 1936 solely on the grounds that Missouri's Constitution called for "separate education of the races." By state law, Missouri would have been required to pay for Gaines to attend the Universities in Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska, but Gaines was determined to fight for the right to attend law school in his own state university. He sought legal assistance from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), which had been working systematically to overturn the ignominious precedent of "separate but equal" established in Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896. Together, they challenged the University of Missouri's admissions policies. In 1938, Gaines won his case before the United States Supreme Court in State of Missouri ex rel Gaines v. Canada, paving the way for a series of cases that would lead to Brown v. Board of Education's outlawing segregation in public education. In March 1939, only three months after his Supreme Court victory, Lloyd Gaines was last seen in Chicago. He disappeared at age 28 with his promise of attending law school in Missouri unfilfilled. Lloyd Gaines was never to be seen or heard from again.