On this day 60th years ago, one of the darkest days in Jacksonville’s history almost went unnoticed by the media. We call this day “Ax Handle Sunday”

It’s no secret about Jacksonville’s history with racism. Back in the 60’s blacks had to eat in the far back next to the bathrooms or take food to go. The bar top was sacred land for whites in those days for some reason

A group of young black activists grew tired of all of this unfairness and decided to do sit ins. A group would walk in the restaurant, sit at the counter top and would demand to served and wouldn’t leave that spot until treated fairly

About 2 weeks into the sit in protest on a Sunday, a large group of white men stormed downtown in a restaurant that was right across from the formally known hemming park, and began attacking the protesters with ax handles and baseball bats and other weapons

It was a brutal, bloody scene. KKK members started on the protesters, but later they attacked any black person that they could get good swing on

As a kid I was told that even the local black panthers couldn’t get a handle on the situation for a tough street gang known as the Boomerangs were called in to put in work and get everything under control. Most of Jacksonville don’t even know who and how legendary that gang was

Before the event, no major news outlet gave word that sit ins were happening and city hall was basically across the street from where their taxpayers are bleeding out just watching it happen. Only the black papers told the story

After the event, again, no major local news gave word to this event and the City downplayed that Bloody Sunday as “just a lil disturbance”. It wasn’t until that photograph in the first tweet shown was on a national scale. A photographer from Life capture the reality

Another cover up in a legendary city. That happens here for some reason...

I’ll end this thread with this last portion here. Nat Glover was a young man who just happened to be downtown and was thrown right in the mix. He ran up to a white cop asking for help but the cop told him “you better get out of here before they kill you”...

....six years later Nat joined JSO and in 1995 became the first black sheriff in the state of Florida

Jacksonville played a major role in the civil rights movement and was one of the more important cities during that time, but just like this horrible situation, it barely made the rounds. 60 years later, the only thing that has really changed the name of the park