Rodney Lawrence Hurst, Sr. - Mr Pearson's Class - Civil Rights Leader & Historian

In 1960, Rodney Lawrence Hurst, Sr., the 16-yr-old president of
his local NAACP Youth Council, led a sit-in at a local segregated
lunch counter. All this young black leader desired was basic
respect and dignity. In no time, a mob of 200 angry whites showed
up with axe handles, spitting and shouting epithets, in what came
to be infamously known as "Axe Handle Saturday." Sixty years
later, this Southern gentleman is still fighting for fairness and
speaking truth to power. “When I interact with whites, I say to
them, ‘When you come into my community, I don’t want you coming
into my community being as black as me. You don’t understand my
problems. You don’t understand the circumstances of living in a
black life. You have not walked a mile in my shoes. And, I’m not
gonna hold that against you. All I’m asking you to do when you
come into my community, when we have conversations ... all I ask
you to do is to listen to what I say and be fair. Don’t don’t try
to be an expert on me,'” says Hurst, author of three
award-winning books on black history--It was never about a hot
dog and a Coke! A personal account of the 1960 sit-in
demonstrations in Jacksonville, Florida, and Ax Handle Saturday,
Unless WE Tell It…It Never Gets Told! and Never Forget Who You
Are: Conversations about Racism and Identity Development, which
he co-authored with Dr. Rudy F. Jamison Jr.  


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