JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Jacksonville’s murder rate is down by 83 percent.
Sounds too good to be true, but the decline is real, at least, as one author notes, over the span of the past 130 years.
“Murder Capital” is Florida State College at Jacksonville professor Tim Gilmore’s 20th book, this one tracking Jacksonville’s reputation as Florida’s bloodiest city.
Through several high-profile cases, Gilmore explores Jacksonville’s long history of racial violence, including the story of civil rights martyr Johnnie May Chappell, a mother of 10 who was murdered in 1964.
The crime occurred following a grim pronouncement by the city’s chief executive amid protests to desegregate local lunch counters.
“Mayor Haydon Burns, having said that there was no chance that Jacksonville would ever desegregate, and four angry white men went and found somebody to shoot,” says Gilmore. “And they found 35-year-old Johnnie Mae Chappell walking a block from her home. And they murdered her, and one of them served a couple of years. The other three never served any time.”
Gilmore has been doing readings to promote the book. His next reading is scheduled for Sept 20. at the WB Tatter Studio Gallery at 501 Anastasia Blvd. in St. Augustine.