ACCORD Freedom Trail-120 DeHaven Street - Florida Historical Markers on Waymarking.com

This house was built in the 1920s and purchased a decade later by Jutson Ayers, who worked as an alligator wrestler for a quarter of a century at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm before his death in 1958. His widow, Mrs. Rena Ayers, gave important support to the civil rights movement of the 1960s by providing lodging for out-of-towners who came here to support the movement.
In March 2005, when she was 100 years old, Mrs. Ayers had a visit from one of those she had hosted 41 years before. He was Alvin J. Bronstein, an attorney who had come to St. Augustine in August 1964 with the idea of spending his two week summer vacation aiding the movement with his legal skills. Instead, he wound up spending the next four years as staff counsel for the Lawyers’ Constitutional Defense Committee (LCDC), handling important civil rights cases in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana (including getting Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. out of jail in Mississippi). He was one of many people whose lives were deeply influenced by their time in St. Augustine.
On his 2005 return, he walked through the front door of this house pointed to the left and said, "That's my room".
When the U.S. Postal Service issued a set of stamps, commemorating the Freedom Movement in August 2005, Mrs. Ayers was honored as one of the legendary "House Mothers of the Civil Rights Movement" in St. Augustine.

Marker Number: None Date: July 2, 2008 County: St Johns Marker Type: Plaque Sponsored or placed by: Northrop Grumman Website: Not listed

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