Foot Soldiers Monument

The Foot Soldiers Monument stands in the Plaza de la Constitución, in the heart of downtown St. Augustine, honoring the ordinary people — many of them teenagers — who marched, picketed, sat in, and filled the jails during the city’s 1963–64 civil rights demonstrations.

Unveiled in 2011, the bronze monument recognizes the “foot soldiers” of the St. Augustine Movement. Their willingness to face arrest, beatings, and worse in a city preparing to celebrate its 400th anniversary drew national attention to segregation in the North’s oldest city — pressure that helped push the Civil Rights Act of 1964 through a stalled U.S. Senate. Unlike the famous leaders, most of these demonstrators are remembered here together, as the movement they were.

The monument sits steps from the old market pavilion and the Andrew Young Crossing, making the Plaza a natural place to begin exploring St. Augustine’s civil rights history. Free to visit, open air, any time.