The Stepchild of the Movement: Cora Tyson and Civil Rights Movement Memory in Florida

Through an analysis of previously collected oral histories and interviews, this paper examines the civil rights efforts and memories of Cora Tyson in St. Augustine, Florida in the early 1960s. On March 29, 1964, on Easter Sunday, St. Augustine became a hotbed of civil rights protests. Throughout the summer, civil rights activists staged protests against segregation through sit-in’s at stores and wade-in’s at the local beaches. When Martin Luther King, Jr. came down to support the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s (SCLC) local campaign, further protest ensued, as did the violent responses. During the summer of 1964, Tyson’s home became the headquarters for the SCLC. She is most famously known for her interactions with Martin Luther King, Jr., who stayed in her home while in St. Augustine. The memories of Black women like Tyson, bring additional insights to the history of grassroots organizing and how the Civil Rights Movement is remembered. In doing so, this paper makes interventions within Black women’s history, civil rights studies, and memory studies.