By Aleksandra Bacewicz
Above: Dan Harmeling, former UF student and civil rights activist, poses in his yard next to the mug shots of him and his twin brother taken in 1964. They were arrested for peacefully protesting outside a segregated restaurant in St. Augustine, Fla. Photo by Erik Knudsen.
In the 1960s, African Americans weren’t allowed west of 13th Street after dark, the one exception being UF students. The university gave the Gainesville police pictures of its black students so police officers could check that those who crossed 13th Street were in fact enrolled at UF.
“It was that bad. There was that kind of extreme discrimination right here,” said Dan Harmeling, one of the many white UF students who were active in the civil rights struggle alongside their African American friends.
Dan remembers one evening when a police officer shined a flashlight in his friend Jesse Dean’s face as the officer browsed through a collection of photos to ensure that Jesse was allowed to be there.
Black History Month pushes us to re-examine the deep-seated discrimination that daily confronted community members like Jesse and those who fought within their communities for a more just society.
Before Dan moved to Gainesville for school in the early 1960s, the minister at his church in Winter Park showed him how to fight for equality through his actions as a member of the NAACP and state civil rights groups. Dan quickly began to follow his example.
When Dan and his twin brother, Jim, moved to Gainesville to study psychology, Dan settled in the “student ghetto,” an area behind University Avenue that was one of the cheapest places to find housing. It was here that he met many black students who soon became his close friends.
“At the time, Gainesville was completely segregated. The blacks weren’t allowed in any of the restaurants along University,” he said. “They were treated as sub-par citizens.”
Dan joined his friend and fellow activist, Chester Chestnut III, and protested these restaurants and other local businesses.
In 1963, Dan and other activists blocked the entrance of The Florida Theater because the theater wouldn’t let African Americans buy tickets to shows. A white mob quickly gathered to counter the growing crowd, but Dan and others did not falter.
The movement continued to grow from there, amassing more activists with each protest. With the efforts of the NAACP and the Student Group for Equal Rights, Dan and his peers continued to push against discriminatory practices in Gainesville by holding protests and sit-ins.
“Very few businesses gave in to our demands and almost none changed their practices voluntarily. They changed when the law forced them to change,” Dan said.
The same year he helped block the entrance to The Florida Theater, Dan and fellow UF student, Judith Brown, joined Florida A&M protesters and picketed a Tallahassee movie theater. Dan was arrested, the first of four arrests for “civil disobedience.”
UF administrators, including then UF President J. Wayne Reitz, wanted Dan and Judith expelled for misconduct. Although they were ultimately allowed to remain at the university, Brown had her Graduate Assistantship in English withdrawn and Dan lost his job at the library.
“The administrators at UF were some of the most prominent segregationists. Dean Grinter would cross our picket lines to go into segregated restaurants, and Stephen O’Connell once had 50 students arrested for sitting in his office,” Dan said. “They were what we had to fight against.”
Dan, still fighting in 1964, protested against the segregation of public spaces in St. Augustine. The event drew national attention, with Martin Luther King Jr.’s presence and the Ku Klux Klan’s violent backlash.
Later that year, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, ending racial segregation in schools and other public facilities. But merely passing this act did not end racism, which was still pervasive in society. And Dan and others kept fighting. The following year, he and a group of at least 15 from Gainesville took part in the historic march from Selma, Alabama to Montgomery to push for equal voting rights.
“The vestiges of racism are still here,” Dan said. “It may not be as apparent, but this town was built on discrimination.”
Dan currently lives in Gainesville, teaching and tutoring part-time and is still engaged in political activism. He sees remnants of inequality in subsidized housing and the efforts to close schools in east Gainesville. The fight for equal rights is not yet over, but he does admit that the situation is a huge improvement from the 1960s.
“There are African Americans in leadership positions. Our police chief is an African American. We couldn’t have imagined that back then.”
Dan gently insists that he is only a small part of the civil rights story here in Gainesville and that there are still many personal histories left to tell.
“I remember people thinking we were idealists… and yeah, I guess we were. We just knew things could be better.”
Even now, 50 years later, Dan knows that things can improve and he continues to strive for that: something better.
Wow, this article is very impressive. And it makes one think, you know, of our past. Wow! It’s hard to imagine.