ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. — The future of a humble house on Atlantic View in Crescent Beach has been at the center of controversy for years.
The beach house was built in the 1950s.
It's where segregationists thought Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was staying when they set it on fire and shot it up in 1964.
The current owners have a demolition permit, which prompted local groups to act and the state to cough up $400,000 to move it to a county park called Windswept Acres. It's just a few blocks away. It was going to preserved as be a static historic display.
However, residents last month told county leaders they did not want the house in their beach community. The residents thought it would bring extra traffic from sightseers, and some did not think it was historic enough.
County leaders voted on a plan B this week, to have the house moved to a Collier-Blocker-Puryear Park in West Augustine, a historically black community.
"Oh I’m excited," Greg White smiled. He and others in West Augustine welcome the house.
“Actually, it could be a game changer because it can bring economic development to this site, which makes it a point of destination for the tourists," he said.
Instead of a few blocks, the house will now be moved approximately ten miles. County commissioners voted to spend another $250,000 to make that happen.
Certainly some people wonder why move the house from the beach to West Augustine. What’s the relevance?
White told First Coast News the corner played a role in the Civil Rights movement in St. Augustine. In 1964, students who attended Florida Memorial University and Murray High School on this block, both Black schools, marched from that corner to downtown St. Augustine.
White was one of them.
"We'd be singing 'We Shall Overcome” and “Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around.' And we walked, and we walked around the plaza singing our songs, and then we would walk back," White recalled.
This part of West Augustine is also in the running as a location for the Florida Black History Museum. White believes acquiring the house will be a boost for this low income community.
Speaking about where the house could have gone, White said, "So we got a community that maybe not everyone wants it there, and now you have historic West Augustine that’s embracing the move. Ok. We’re embracing history."
A county commissioner said the owners of the house want it moved by April 1.