Rodney L. Hurst, Sr. is a civil rights activist, a Black historian, and the author of three award-winning books.
Rodney L Hurst, Sr. was born on born on March 2, 1944 in Jacksonville, Florida. As a high school student at Northwestern Junior-Senior High School, he was a protégé of Rutledge Pearson. At 16 years old, Hurst was President of the Jacksonville Youth Council NAACP when students organized peaceful sit-ins to protest segregation. During one of the sit-ins, the students were chased through the city by 200 white Klansmen carrying ax handles and baseball bats. It came to be known as Ax Handle Saturday.
Hurst’s book It was never about a hot dog and a Coke is his eyewitness account of the 1960 sit-ins and Ax Handle Saturday. It is the only historically accurate description of those events since the local press suppressed coverage when the events were happening. His second book, Unless WE Tell It...It Never Gets Told! highlights Jacksonville’s Black history, and his third book which he co-authored with Dr. Rudy Jamison is Never Forget Who You Are: Conversations About Racism and Identity Development.
In addition to his involvement in the civil rights movement, Hurst served two four-year terms as a member of the Jacksonville City Council. His life is marked by a series of firsts: he was one of the thirteen original national recipients of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting Television Fellowships: he was the first Black to co-host a television talk show in Jacksonville on PBS channel WJCT; he was the first Black male hired at the Prudential South Central Home Office in Jacksonville, Florida; and he was the first Black to serve as the Executive Director of the State of Florida’s Construction Industry Licensing Board. A Silver Life Member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Hurst also serves as an adviser to the Center for Urban Education and Policy at the University of North Florida. He previously served on the Jacksonville Civil Rights Task Force and chaired the Sub-Committee on the Civil Rights Timeline for Jacksonville, codified by the Jacksonville City Council. He is also a veteran of the United States Air Force.
Hurst is the recipient of numerous awards and continues to speak extensively on civil rights, Black history, and racism.
View and purchase Rodney's books here.
Content provided courtesy of Rodney Hurst, Sr.
