Rodney Hurst 

At eleven years of age, Rodney Hurst joined the Jacksonville Youth Council NAACP at the invitation of Rutledge Pearson, the Youth Council’s advisor.  The uniqueness about his joining was that Pearson was also Hurst’s eighth grade American History teacher and the invitation came in the classroom. 

Hurst considers meeting Rutledge Pearson and subsequently joining the NAACP as having the greatest impact on his life. He later became President of the Jacksonville Youth Council NAACP in 1959 and led the Youth Council’s sit-in demonstrations in the summer of 1960.

Those demonstrations culminated in the now infamous “Ax Handle Saturday” when young Blacks were attacked by 200 whites with ax handles and baseball bats after staging a sit-in demonstration at Grant’s Department Store in downtown Jacksonville. Later that year, Hurst became a student at EWC and continued his civil rights activities.

Hurst’s new book, It was never about a hot dog and a Coke, released in February, 2008 and subtitled “A Personal Account of the 1960 Sit-in Demonstrations in Jacksonville, Florida and Ax Handle Saturday” recounts the events leading up to and the fallout from the bloody events of August 27, 1960. 

Though lunch counter sit-in and other demonstrations were very visible in 1960, Mr. Hurst is quick to point out that demonstrations were about “…human dignity and respect. Lunch counters were just visible and convenient vestiges to attack racial discrimination.”   He considers his election to the Jacksonville City Council as an extension of his earlier work in the Civil Rights Movement. In addition to his involvement in the Civil Rights Movement, Hurst’s years of service in Jacksonville include but are not limited to the following: One of the first 13 national recipients of Television Study Fellowships from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting Fellowships for career study in Public Television;

• The first Black to co-host a television talk show in Jacksonville; 
• The first Black male to be hired by the Prudential Insurance South Central Home Office;
• Project Director and Executive Director in Jacksonville’s Anti-Poverty Programs for more than 6 years;
• Writer and the Director of the initial Youth Employment Programs and Summer Youth Employment Programs for the City of Jacksonville;
• Served more than 4 years as the first and only Black Executive Director of the State of Florida’s Construction Industry Licensing Board;
• The first Black elected National President of the National Association of State Contractors Licensing Agencies;
• Served two four-year terms on the Jacksonville City Council; chaired the Rules for 6 years; chaired the Recreation Committee for 1 year; chaired the Urban Affairs Committee for 1 year; and served as a member of the Finance Committee for 8 years.

He is the recipient of numerous fraternal and civic recognitions and awards. Mr. Hurst is currently on the staff of Edward Waters College.  Hurst is a member of the Bethel Baptist Institutional Church of Jacksonville where he actively serves in the Music Ministry. 

He is married to the former Ann Albertie for more than forty-one years.  They have two sons, Rodney II and Todd, and two granddaughters, Marquiette and Jasmine.