My George Washington

When the angry ferocity of hurricane Idalia began blowing through the news, concern pulled me toward the east coast of Florida (St. Augustine) where a precious childhood friend resides. His name: David Nolan. Our connection: he, his sister, mother and father were neighbors in around 1955. They lived downstairs, we lived upstairs. After decades without contact, David and I had a back-and-fourth a number of years ago (on the occasion of one or another bereavement) and reconnected. Thus, I still had an email contact and quickly wrote: Re: Checking up on you, also (in the body of the email) STAY SAFE! SENDING LOVE. Quickly a reply bounced back, reassuring (in part): So far, it’s a cinch: grey sky, a light wind, occasional rain. We are fortunately just – JUST – outside the area of alarm. It couldn’t have picked a less-populated part of Florida for the worst hit, over the Big Bend region of small fishing villages. I feel sorry for the people. (signed) George

David Nolan is an historian. We haven’t come face-to-face later in life, but here’s a photo I found of David as an adult:

Nolan, an author, historian, and civil right activist helped to change that.

“I dropped out of school in the 1960s to work in the civil rights movement,” Nolan said.

In 1963, there was a movement taking place, one Nolan couldn’t ignore.

“That was the most meaningful year of my entire life, I’m sure,” Nolan said.

It was the year of the demonstrations in Birmingham, Alabama. Four young girls were killed in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing and Medgar Evers was assassinated in his driveway. Also in 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his I Have a Dream speech in Washington D.C. Then on Nov. 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.

“This was what was happening in America,” Nolan said. “And I was, you know, growing up and you had to decide which side are you on. And to me, there was no question it was going to be that side.”

He’s held on to old articles and memorabilia over the years, detailing his journey, choosing at times the unpopular path. From Virginia to the South Carolina Sea Islands, Atlanta to St. Augustine, Florida living among history.

“It’s almost like heaven except there’s also hell attached to it,” Nolan said. “But, you’re right. I mean, for me, as a historian the greatest pleasure is walking down the street and walking past people who made history.”

Nolan arrived in the Ancient City in the 1970s and was among a group created to survey the city’s old buildings.

“I walked up and down every street of St. Augustine for two years, I walked through the soles of many pairs of shoes,” Nolan said.

His worn-out soles led him through the city’s historically Black neighborhood of Lincolnville.

“St. Augustine had been this incredibly important place in the civil rights movement, it was the place between Birmingham and Selma,” Nolan said. “It was the place that gave rise to one of the two great legislative accomplishments of the movement, the Civil Rights Act of 1964. And yet, when I came here, it was never talked about, it had been completely swept under the rug.”Nolan picked up that rug, dusted it off and put just about everything he could find underneath on display. These included things such as a permanently marked Freedom Trail of historic sites of the Civil Rights Movement, trolley tours sharing the city’s Black history, and Florida’s first civil rights museum.

A founder of ACCORD, recognizing St. Augustine’s role in the Civil Rights Movement, Nolan still lights up while sharing the past.

“St. Augustine is really a treasure but we’ve got to guard it constantly,” Nolan said.

Nolan shared a wide range of stories while sitting in the ACCORD museum, the former dental office of Dr. Robert Hayling at 79 Bridge Street in St. Augustine. Stories in which include how he says he became the first person beaten by the Ku Klux Klan in the state of Virginia since the 1920s.

Wow! Although I’d known he was an historian and author (Nolan, David, Fifty Feet in Paradise: The Booming of Florida, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1984, and The Houses of St. Augustine, Sarasota, Pineapple Press, 1995 with paintings by Jean Ellen Fitzpatrick and photographs by Ken Barret, Jr. among more) I hadn’t known the extent of his activism nor that:

During Black History Month in 2009, Nolan received the Governor’s Points of Light Award for outstanding community service.

On July 2, 2009, the 45th anniversary of the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, he received the President’s Volunteer Service Award from Barack Obama.

He has served as president of the Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Society and trustee of the Fort Mose Historical Society.

Gosh David! How proud your parents and mine – folks with big hearts and kind souls – would surely be!

But: why would a formidable man such as Davie Nolan sign an email George?

Here’s why:

The photo on the left was taken in around 1954 or 5 or so on Halloween. (It was my very favorite holiday at a time when my family of atheists celebrated no holiday that had a religious connection). In it David (though I called him Davy) is George Washington wearing hardy breeches (also known as jodhpurs, meant for riding and/or fencing, or as ordinary trousers that stopped below the knee). I’m Martha Washington sporting a weighty but alluring and fashionable bustle (also known as a tournure – a padded undergarment/fashion accessory meant to enhance the ‘curvature’ of the buttocks).

In fidelity to history, we both are sporting powdered wigs. Beside us: someone who seems to be a chic KLM stewardess clutching her handbag alongside an older mysterious person who might have been David’s older sister, Carol, whose costume doesn’t seem to ring a bell but, even seventy years later, seems quite glamorous. George and Martha proudly clutch make-shift sacks containing hand-outs of candy (miniature Buttermilk bars, Doubble Bubble Gum, candy corn, an Atomic Fire Ball jaw breaker or two) scored by begging from door to door. George and Martha hoped that their patriotic costumes might charm folks into additional generosity and, though I can’t say for sure, probably did.