A new plaque for an old event sits in James Weldon Johnson Park, acknowledging a push for equality, a horrific attack and the change that followed.<\/p>\n
Jacksonville leaders unveiled a historical marker for Axe Handle Saturday, which happened 66 years ago Thursday.<\/a><\/p>\n Any visitors to downtown Jacksonville can stop at the new plaque to read about what happened at the park in front of city hall in 1960.<\/p>\n It’s a story one Jacksonville activist says he’ll keep telling so the history isn’t forgotten.<\/p>\n “This is an opportunity for us to recognize history and understand that you cannot change it,” said Civil Rights Activist Rodney Hurst. “It’s not an urban legend.”<\/p>\n Hurst said he and his fellow NAACP Youth Council members could tell something was brewing outside May Cohens, what is now Jacksonville City Hall, while his group conducted a sit-in for about an hour at the segregated lunch counter.<\/p>\n “They were passing out ax handles by this very corner by city hall, but we decided to sit in anyway because it was more important that we be a part of the solution than part of the problem,” said Hurst.<\/p>\n Hurst said his group was attacked by 200 people with axe handles and baseball bats.<\/p>\n Fortunately, he wasn’t physically hurt.<\/p>\n “We ran and young ladies who were sitting-in with us, we pushed them back into department stores on Adams Street and they were locking their doors,” said Hurst. “Any black person downtown was being attacked.”<\/p>\n The City of Jacksonville is commemorating the effort Hurst and his group made that day and the change it brought about.<\/p>\n “A place that once witnessed a painful moment in Jacksonville’s history is now a place of community and connection,” said Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan. “That is change.”<\/p>\n