The St. Johns Sheriff's Office's Detention Center Annex was once the county's jail. In the 1960s, civil rights activists like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. were held there. | Noah Hertz, Jacksonville Today
Published on May 8, 2025 at 12:42 pm
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St. Johns County says a plan to demolish an old jail building where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested in St. Augustine is no longer on the table after community activists opposed the plan.
Addressing the St. Johns County Commission this week, County Administrator Joy Andrews said officials are now looking for a cost-effective way to turn the empty building in the St. Johns Sheriff’s Office administrative complex into office space.
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“I think the team’s collective decision was to move forward to renovate the jail structure because it is a very sound structure and it is very costly to recreate a structure like that,” Andrews said.
She said the county is also looking at preserving it for historical purposes.
Built in the 1950s, the unassuming building tucked into the complex on Lewis Speedway served as the county’s jail for years. The jail building is where civil rights activists, including King and a group of rabbis, were sent after they were arrested during protests against segregation in the 1960s.
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When historic preservation advocates became aware earlier this year that the county was considering demolishing the building, they acted fast.
Rabbi Merrill Shapiro, the head of the St. Augustine Jewish Historical Society, launched an online petition to save the building. It has since received nearly 1,000 signatures.
Speaking with Jacksonville Today earlier this year, St. Johns Sheriff Rob Hardwick said he had spoken with members of the Black and Jewish communities and was not expecting so much opposition to its removal. The building hasn’t been used as a jail for decades, and any historically significant material has long since been removed.
But Shapiro says it’s about more than just what’s inside the building — it’s about what the building represents.
“The connection to the Jewish world and the world of civil rights for African Americans in our country,” Shapiro said. “There are few places in our country that have such an intersection.”
Shapiro plans to acknowledge the importance of that connection next month during the annual reading of “Why We Went,” the letter penned from jail by a group of rabbis (and one administrator) who answered King’s call to come to St. Augustine to protest segregation.
The St. Augustine Jewish Historical Society has previously hosted the reading at the former site of the Monson Motor Lodge, where owner James Brock poured acid on a group of protesters who jumped into the lodge’s segregated pool as an act of protest. This year, Shapiro says the reading will be held on the steps of the old jail building where King, the rabbis and other activists were arrested.
In addition to a reading of the letter written by the rabbis, the June 18 event will also include a reading of the letter King sent to Rabbi Israel Dresner asking him to come to St. Augustine with as many rabbis he could find who were willing to be arrested to fight segregation. That letter will be read this year by Dresner’s son, Avi Dresner.
