Monson Motor Lodge motel manager pouring acid in the water when a group of white and black integrationists swam in his pool, June 18, 1964 (Photo: Horace Cort) [700×839]

The photo shown here was connected to the St. Augustine Movement, named for the town in Florida where it took place. Lots of peaceful protests and demonstrations were responded to with violence, which lead to more and more protests.

On June 11, 1964, Martin Luther King, Jr was arrested for trespassing at the Monson Motor Lodge after being asked to leave its segregated restaurant.

This (and other things) helped spur on a group of protesters, black and white, to jump into the pool as a strategically planned event to end segregation at motel pools.

The pool at this motel was designated “white only”. Whites who paid for motel rooms invited blacks to join them in the motel pool as their guests.

This swim-in was planned by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, and two associates. The motel manager, Jimmy Brock, in an effort to break up the party, poured a bottle of muriatic acid into the pool, hoping the swimmers would become scared and leave.

One swimmer, who knew that the ratio of acid to pool water was so great that the acid was no longer a threat, drank some of the pool water to calm the other swimmers’ fears.

Muriatic acid is undiluted hydrochloric acid and is used in the cleaning of masonry surfaces such as pools. But what people heard was the word “acid”.

Though it did not scare the swimmers, it was only effective in making the protesters at least nervous — the amount of acid to the amount of water being so small it was mostly safe — a cop then jumped in and started arresting people.

The motel and pool were demolished in March 2003, despite five years of protests, thus eliminating one of the nation’s important landmarks of the Civil Rights Movement.

A Hilton Hotel was built on the site.