It was never about a hot dog and a Coke!

Rodney L. Hurst, Sr.
WingSpan Press (2008)
ISBN 9781595941954
Reviewed by Kam Aures for RebeccasReads (5/08)

“It was never about a hot dog and a Coke!” is author Rodney L. Hurst’s first-hand account of the sit-ins in Jacksonville, Florida in the 1960s.  Throughout his lifetime Hurst has been a very active and influential member of the Jacksonville community.  He has served on the Jacksonville City Council.  He was the first African-American to be a TV co-host in Jacksonville.  He was the Executive Director of Florida’s Construction Industry Licensing Board.  Besides these and other accomplishments, the one that this book centers around is the time period in which he was involved with the Jacksonville Youth Council NAACP.  He joined at age 11 and became President of the group at age 15. 

During this era everything was segregated. There were restrooms specifically designated for “Coloreds” and ones for “Whites.”  There was even s a separate section of The Florida Times-Union newspaper that had a black star at the top and was “News For and About the Colored People of Jacksonville.”  This section of the paper was not included in home deliveries to white households so white people of the time knew little about the achievements and news in the black community.  Among other areas, this segregation also applied to the educational system and to lunch counters in department stores, which is the main focus of Hurst’s book.  As President of the Jacksonville Youth council NAACP group he played an influential role in leading the sit-ins at these lunch counters in the 1960s in a protest of segregation and racism.  As the title of the book implies, these sit-ins were not “about a hot dog and a Coke,” they were about “…human dignity and respect.  Lunch counters were just visible and convenient vestiges to attack racial discriminations.”

Although the sit-ins were peaceful demonstrations, the reactions by the white community were not always so peaceful.  There was one incident that was dubbed “Ax Handle Saturday” that occurred on August 27th, 1960 in which mobs of white people attacked black shoppers with ax sticks and baseball bats.   

“It was ever about a hot dog and a Coke!” is a look at the events by someone who truly lived and breathed them.  It is a first-hand look at the civil rights movement of that era that has not become misconstrued by going through numerous sources. Throughout the book are numerous pictures of the people involved and also some of the few pictures of the events that took place.  One of the pictures included is a disturbing one taken on “Ax Handle Saturday” which features an innocent bystander splattered in blood from being attacked.  These pictures give you a true sense of just how horrific the events were that took place.

I lived in Jacksonville for a short period of time so the references to certain streets were familiar to me but most of the history of the black community in that area was not at all.  I feel like I learned a lot by reading Hurst’s book, “It was never about a hot dog and a Coke!,” and I think it would be a wonderful addition to the required reading list of any history class or to anyone who wants to educate themselves of the events that occurred in America’s past.