Daughter shares story of her father, Deputy Sheriff Fifield, during the Civil Rights era

Teresa Fifield Thompson, a weekly blogger for outlookmag.org, reached out to The St. Augustine Record to share the history of her father, Everett Fifield, a part-time deputy sheriff for St. Johns County, owner of a local gas station, and a 20-year Crescent Beach resident during early 1960s, a time when local news sidestepped reporting the racial divide happening in America’s oldest city.

Deputy Fifield’s story, as told by his daughter, is another layer within St. Augustine’s many that contributed to the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

In 1964, the Civil Rights Act, first proposed by President John F. Kennedy, languished by filibuster in the U.S. Senate. As America remained embedded in the Cold War while facing the onset of the Vietnam War, St. Augustine’s Lincolnville, a residential Black community, sitting west of the railroad, became a nucleus for violence.

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., one of the most influential Black leaders in American history, descended upon St. Augustine with members of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to assist Dr. Robert B. Hayling, St. Augustine’s Civil Rights leader, to tame the violence through peaceful marches, sit-ins and wade-ins.

The Ku Klux Klan along with members of law enforcement and government officials retaliated, at times viciously. But not everyone, as we learn today from Thompson’s account, joined those intent on harming anyone opposed to segregation and equal rights.

Thompson described her father as a dichotomy of opposites, at times arrogant and abrasive, yet caring, generous, a hard worker and a good provider. Expressing her love and appreciation, Thompson praised her father’s bold actions for shaping the “future world in a significant way.”

Without hesitation, Thompson described her youth as growing up in the Jim Crow south. Although St. Augustine’s population tallied at 25% Black, she remembers never seeing anyone of color until a “handful” of Black students integrated into St. Augustine High School in 1965.

“St. Augustine’s white businesses had an unfair no Blacks policy, so we never saw people of color around town,” she said. “Somehow, our family’s gas station at Crescent Beach was able to ignore the town’s requirement and serve anyone we chose. My parents, transplants from the Midwest, never saw skin color as a problem, so they didn’t feel there was a need to post ‘Whites Only’ signs at our gas station.”

Thompson noted that Blacks didn’t typically show up at St. Augustine’s "Whites Only" beaches.

“There was only one small stretch of beach area, Butler Beach, where Black citizens could safely swim and cool off in the surf,” she said. “No signs were needed at Crescent Beach. You just understood where you were welcome and where you were not.”

According to Thompson, in 1963, members of Lincolnville’s Black community “understandably” felt slighted when excluded from the planning committee organizing St. Augustine’s 400-year anniversary, a celebration that included then-President Lyndon B. Johnson.

“Several of those living in Lincolnville took a bold stand and decided to do something to force their inclusion in the upcoming, profitable festivities, to end the decades-long inequities that kept them separate from their white neighbors for so many years,” she said.

However, said Thompson, the protest marches and demonstrations of summer of 1963 were unsuccessful. Escalating violence became the norm. And the presence of King and the SCLC simply incited more violence.

“The KKK, the nation’s oldest terrorist organization, descended upon St. Augustine and riled up the white supremacist majority already there,” she continued. “City officials and leaders were determined not to give up their ideas of racial separation, even though the Supreme Court had ruled their practices unconstitutional a decade earlier in 1954, with Brown vs. The Board of Education.”

Thompson described the KKK rallies in St. Augustine’s Old Slave Market as “hate and anger-filled, emotionally charged events that quickly gained popularity among the townspeople.”

Ironically, despite his part-time status, Deputy Sheriff Fifield was assigned to march next to King to guard him during the protests.

“Consequently, he [Deputy Fifield] was a target for the many bricks, rocks, eggs, etc. that angry whites threw at demonstrators, especially at the whites who marched with them,” continued Thompson. “Without the kind of riot-protection gear and training police officers have now, I can only imagine the bravery it must have taken to accept that assignment. So much violence had already gripped the town for almost a year.”

To this day, Thompson believes that her father may have worked undercover or provided information to Dudley Garrett, the special investigator for the state attorney for 7th Judicial Circuit of Florida. Dudley would later serve as the sheriff of St. Johns County between 1970 and 1981.

“L.O. Davis was a popular sheriff then and had been elected many times; but to some, he seemed far too sympathetic with the white supremacists, and was suspected of overlooking many criminal activities going on around the county,” she said. “Either the state attorney, who drove by our gas station from his home in Daytona Beach, or his investigator, my dad’s close friend, Dudley Garrett, who was appointed sheriff in place of L.O. Davis in 1970, may have requested the help of someone like my dad, who didn’t grow up in the south, to help monitor the allegedly corrupt sheriff’s unprofessional, shady dealings.”

While Thompson admits that her father’s involvement is guesswork, she refers to a book, “If It Takes All Summer,” published in 2008 by Dan Warren.

“The author outlines details that suggest my dad’s possible, dangerous assignments that helped their investigations,” she said.

Thompson said that she believes her father chose “the right side” and therefore, may have played a small part in the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Guarding King is an endeavor she’s proud of along with any “clandestine undercover work” her father may have executed, even those that could have caused death threats to the Fifield family.

“The Civil Rights legislation that was finally passed in 1964 was critical in making this a better place to live for everyone, not just in St. Augustine, but around the world,” she concluded. “There’s still much to be done to promote equality for minorities, but knowing this history has made me determined to keep working for needed societal changes, so my dad’s unsung bravery, and that of many others, will not have been wasted.”

This article originally appeared on St. Augustine Record: Daughter shares story of dad's bravery during the Civil Rights Era