History of St. Augustine

h-century architecture. The city's historic center is anchored by St. George Street, which is lined with historic houses from various periods. Most of these houses are reconstructions of buildings that had been burned or demolished over the years, though a few of them are original.

The city has a privately funded Freedom Trail of historic sites of the civil rights movement, and a museum at the Fort Mose site, the location of the 1738 free black community. Historic Excelsior School, built in 1925 as the first public high school for blacks in St. Augustine, has been adapted as the city's first museum of African-American history. In 2011, the St. Augustine Foot Soldiers Monument, a commemoration of participants in the civil rights movement, was dedicated in the downtown plaza a few feet from the former Slave Market. Robert Hayling, the leader of the St. Augustine movement, and Hank Thomas, who grew up in St. Augustine and was one of the original Freedom Riders, spoke at the dedication ceremony. Another corner of the plaza was designated "Andrew Young Crossing" in honor of the civil rights leader, who received his first beating in the movement in St. Augustine in 1964. Bronze replicas of Young's footsteps have been incorporated into the sidewalk that runs diagonally through the plaza, along with quotes expressing the importance of St. Augustine to the civil rights movement. That project was publicly funded. Some important landmarks of the civil rights movement, including the Monson Motel and the Ponce de Leon Motor Lodge, had been demolished in 2003 and 2004.

The St. Johns County Sheriff's Office has come under intense criticism after the September 2010 gunshot death of Michelle O'Connell, the girlfriend of Jeremy Banks, a sheriff's deputy. The police quickly ruled the death was a suicide, despite what has proven to be considerable evidence to the contrary