Historical Marker on 1960s Civil Rights Demonstrations

On Saturday, August 27, 1960, forty demonstrators in Jacksonville, advised by local civil rights leader Rutledge Pearson, staged sit-ins at the W.T. Grant department store and at Woolworth’s. Seeking access to the whites-only lunch counters, the youth were met by 150 white males who attacked them with axe handles and baseball bats. The conflict, coined “Ax Handle Saturday”, marked a major turning point in the Jacksonville civil rights movement, awakening the community to African Americans’ demand for equal rights.