Dr. Rodney L. Hurst listens to a commemoration of the 63rd anniversary of Ax Handle Saturday on Aug. 27, 2023. | Will Brown, Jacksonville Today
Published on August 26, 2025 at 5:02 pm
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Wynetta Pearson Ussery says there were only two times in her life that she recalled her father cried in her presence.
The first was Aug. 27, 1960, when Ussery’s uncle, Rutledge Pearson, was bloodied “with (a) hole in the head where he had been hit.”
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Pearson was a leader in the Jacksonville NAACP who advised the local high school students who participated in sit-ins at downtown lunch counters. Their teenaged civil disobedience was met with violence from adults.
Ax Handle Saturday was one of Jacksonville’s most shameful moments.
Wednesday, a commemoration will take place on the Eastside at The Church of Oakland on Jessie Street. The event begins at 6 p.m.
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This year’s reflections began when Stage Aurora Theatrical Company produced The Sit-In Experience: Ax Handle Saturday on Sunday.
Ussery was among the nearly 200 people who watched a reenactment of the state-condoned violence on Ax Handle Saturday.
“It just brings back floods of memories and its deep in my heart,” Ussery says. “It’s embedded. (That’s) why I fight for justice. I believe in it. … Justice is an action word. It’s not a sit-on-the-stool-and-give-them-your-money word. You gotta do something. You’ve got to be the person that (doesn’t) sit there and wonder what happened, but help make something happen.”
Ussery is active in ICARE, the Interfaith Coalition for Action Reconciliation and Empowerment. The coalition has sought to find solutions for Jacksonville’s affordable housing crisis and murder rate.
Ussery says she is committed to holding elected officials accountable to the promises they make on the campaign trail.
Direct action with a focus on Jacksonville, and underserved people here is something the Pearson family has done for decades. Meanwhile, others sought to improve the River City through their indirect support of the activists who demanded promises made were promises kept.
Adam DuBois Jr. grew up in the Blodgett Homes. He was not initially Downtown with the NAACP Youth Council on Ax Handle Saturday. But, when the youth activists needed reinforcements as they retreated, DuBois and others were there.
DuBois, now 81, was part of a panel discussion that was held after The Sit-In Experience: Ax Handle Saturday concluded.
“Everybody came back to the projects,” DuBois recalled Sunday. “When we gathered there. There were quite a large number of us. At that time, the police surrounded us. Black police. They wanted to know what our intentions were. Well, we told them we were here for the Summer Olympics.”
As the young people who were central to the protest begin take their eternal rest, there is no guarantee that the elders who remain will be able to participate in future commemorations.
Rodney L. Hurst Sr. is expected to attend. The local activist and historian was a 16-year-old student when he and others sought to eat lunch at a Woolworth’s lunch counter in Downtown.
Hurst and others were bloodied, beaten and forcefully removed from the public space because their melanated skin was perceived to perturb.
Earlier this year, Hurst acknowledged he thought his hometown would be further along. His comments came before local politicians labeled diversity, equity and inclusion as racism and prior to statewide leaders renewing their antagonism toward anything deemed woke.
“We play games when it comes to equality and fairness in this country,” Hurst told Jacksonville Today on the eve of President Donald Trump’s second presidency. “We are at a place where Black folk and white folk don’t want to say things that make each other feel uncomfortable. So, they don’t talk about racism. They don’t talk about issues as it relates to Black history and banning books.
“They don’t talk about what happens, and is happening in the educational arena; what happens in jobs; what happens in a university system where university and faculty professors are afraid to talk about Black history. …
“We aren’t interested in leveling the playing field. We don’t care about the playing field being level. We don’t care about what happens with Black kids in a classroom. We don’t care about Black history. We don’t care about Black books that tell the story. We want our racism as we’ve had it over the years.
“That’s what people deal with. That has not changed.”
