Diversity

PHOTO LOOKING WEST OVER BRIDGE OF LIONS, 2005

 

 

 

 
In 2005, Federal Judge Henry Lee Adams, Jr. found the City of St. Augustine had violated the First Amendment, and ordered the City to fly Rainbow flags on the historic Bridge of Lions June 8-13, 2005 to commemorate diversity in St. Augustine's 11,000 year history.

In 1566, a French interpreter was ordered killed by St. Augustine's founder and Florida's first Governor, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés.  This is believed to be America's first reported hate crime (written down in a book written by his brother-in-law (Gonzalo Solis).  Menéndez may have been acting on orders of the King of Spain (King Phillip II) who ordered Menéndez to "hang and burn the Lutherans" (Protestants) he found in Florida.