Nearly 60 years ago, 16-year-old Rodney Hurst led a group of 33 Black teenagers in a peaceful sit-in to integrate a “whites only” lunch counter at a department store in Jacksonville, Florida.
At the same time a few blocks away, about 200 angry white men, many dressed as Confederate soldiers and armed with ax handles and bats, stormed the store to attack the demonstrators.
Many of the teenagers were beaten and bloodied. Some, like Hurst, escaped unharmed, but were forever psychologically scarred.
The episode became known as Ax Handle Saturday — Aug. 27, 1960, a date that takes on greater meaning now because, on its 60th anniversary next month, President Donald Trump will accept the presidential nomination at the Republican National Convention in Jacksonville, mere miles from the attack.
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