“It is a struggle. It is a battle that has to be fought and you understand in this battle, and this struggle, not to be cliché about it, but that it is not a sprint, but a marathon, yet it is worth fighting.” — Rodney Lawrence Hurst
This was a beautiful exchange with an elegant man of great dignity on racism and the struggle of African-Americans in America. In this show, I was both inspired by Mr. Hurst’s fierce intelligence and the warmth of his heart.
Rodney takes us back through time to the slave owning founding fathers, the Civil War, reconstruction, Jim Crow, and straight up to today and the candidacy of Donald Trump.
I hope you will take the time to sit down with us and share in this dialogue.
“It Was Never About a Hot Dog and a Coke®!” is subtitled “A Personal Account of the 1960 Sit-in Demonstrations in Jacksonville, Florida and Ax Handle Saturday” (read an excerpt).
It is Hurst’s personal eyewitness account, as President of the Jacksonville Florida Youth Council NAACP, of the events leading up to, and the fallout from, the bloody events of August 27, 1960. On that day, 200 ax handle and baseball bat wielding whites attacked members of the Jacksonville Youth Council NAACP who were “sitting-in” at white lunch counters in downtown Jacksonville peacefully protesting segregation.
After attending the book signing,I also puts cased the book ,IT WAS NEVER about A HOTDOG and a COKE,my 16yr old granddaughter,wanted to read it and took it to school and told her teacher that this was the book she was going to read for Black History,I told her I was present doing that time,I was glad she wanted to read the book to learn about black history here in Jacksonville in the 60’s.
Thank you Brenda!