Audrey Nell Edwards


Audrey Nell Edwards was an African-American civil rights activist, best known for her participation in the St. Augustine movement in 1963.

Biography

On July 18, 1963, Edwards and three other black teenagers, JoeAnn Anderson, Willie Carl Singleton, and Samuel White, entered a Woolworth's store in St. Augustine, Florida. In a movement organized by Dr. Robert Hayling, the group who later became known as the St. Augustine Four were arrested for attempting to order hamburgers at the segregated lunch counter. The four teenagers spent six months in local jails and reform schools, refusing to sign a statement pledging to abstain from future civil rights demonstrations. Earl Johnson, a lawyer for the NAACP, attempted to secure their release, but a local judge moved the activists to reform schools in Marianna, Florida and Lowell, Florida, claiming that their cases fell outside of his jurisdiction. Finally, in response to national protests, the Florida governor and cabinet issued a special action for the teenagers' release in January 1964.
The case of the St. Augustine Four caught the attention of other civil rights organizers across the country, including Martin Luther King Jr. and Jackie Robinson, both of whom praised the activists for their courage. When Edwards and Anderson were released from prison, Robinson and his wife Rachel Robinson invited them to visit their Connecticut home and took them to the 1964 New York World's Fair.
In 2004, Edwards attended a ceremony at St. Augustine's First Baptist Church in honor of the St. Augustine Four's contributions to the Civil Rights Movement. Edwards's house at 650 Julia Street in West Augustine, built for her in 2008 by Habitat for Humanity, is now a site on the ACCORD Freedom Trail.