acid in pool..

On June 18, 1964. James Brock, the manager of the Monson Motor Lodge in St. Augustine, Florida, was photographed by Horace Cort pouring muriatic acid into the pool to get a group of White and Black integrationists in swimming pool out.
The St. Augustine Movement, named for the town in Florida where it took place, were peaceful protests and demonstrations which were responded to with violence, which lead to more and more complicated protests.
On June 11, 1964, Martin Luther King, Jr was arrested for trespassing at the Monson Motor Lodge after being asked to leave from its segregated restaurant. This (and other things) helped spur on a group of protesters, Black and White, to jump into the pool as a strategically planned event to end segregation at motel pools. The pool at this motel was designated “White only”. Whites who paid for motel rooms invited Blacks to join them in the motel pool as their guests.

This swim-in was planned by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr and two associates. The motel manager, Jimmy Brock, in an effort to break up the party, poured a bottle of muriatic acid into the pool, hoping the swimmers would become scared and leave. One swimmer, who knew that the ratio of acid to pool water was so great that the acid was no longer a threat, drank some of the pool water to calm the other swimmers’ fears.

Muriatic acid is undiluted hydrochloric acid and is used in the cleaning of masonry surfaces such as pools. But what people heard was the word “acid”. It did not scare the swimmers, though it seems like it was effective in making the protesters at least nervous — the amount of acid to the amount of water being so small it was mostly safe—and so a cop jumped in to arrest people.

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