A Klan rally where four Black men were almost burned alive. A hotel manager pouring acid into a pool to chase out Black swimmers. Brutal assaults of peaceful demonstrators at the site of a former slave market downtown. A shooting into the cottage rented for Martin Luther King, Jr. Each form part of a rarely told and riveting story of civil rights in the nation's oldest city, St. Augustine, Florida. At the height of his fame, King found his treasured doctrine of nonviolence challenged as never before-all as the fate of the Civil Rights Act, the most consequential legislation of the twentieth century, hung in the balance. In this intimate exploration based on hundreds of interviews, Martin Dobrow introduces an extraordinary collection of idealists-Black and white, young and old, gay and straight-who were drawn into the movement, putting their lives on the line for racial justice.

‘Martin Dobrow reveals St. Augustine as a crucible of the Civil Rights Movement, where national injustices met local courage. Told through the actions of everyday people and known heroes, he shows both the triumphs and challenges of answering history’s call. Woven with journalistic rigor and lyrical wonder, this is a timely and beautiful book.’

Ken Burns

‘It’s not easy to find bold new ways to write about Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights struggle, but Martin Dobrow has done it. With painstaking research and splendid prose, he paints a vivid portrait of King and the people surrounding him at a pivotal time in King’s life and in our nation’s history. I couldn’t be more excited about this book.’

Jonathan Eig - Pulitzer-Prize winning author of King: A Life

‘Important, riveting, and insightful. Martin Dobrow has written a deeply engaging and well-researched study of St. Augustine, Florida, one of the crucial sites of civil rights struggle in the 20th century. Original City, Original Sin recovers the story of how America’s oldest city attracted the Klan, grassroots civil rights activists, journalists, and Martin Luther King Jr. to the front lines of an ongoing struggle to redeem the national soul. Dramatic and well told.’

Peniel Joseph - founding director of the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy, University of Texas; author of Freedom Season: How 1963 Transformed America’s Civil Rights Revolution

‘Superbly written, Original City, Original Sin is a compelling history that powerfully and poignantly captures the fundamental humanity and courage of those who stepped forward to challenge the racist mores of the segregated South. The intense civil rights struggle in St. Augustine, Florida, finally receives its due as a landmark chapter in the Black freedom struggle.’

David J. Garrow - Pulitzer-Prize winning author of Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference

Original City, Original Sin: King, the Klan, and the Fight for Civil Rights in St. Augustine, Florida boldly sheds light on a lesser-known chapter of Dr. King’s life, his arrest in St. Augustine, Florida in 1964. Dobrow carries readers on a journey through a local story with nationwide implications, revealing a ten months and five day period in America’s oldest city where the bravery of ordinary people, alongside the activism of well-known figures like King, Andrew Young and Hosea Williams changed history. Written with a journalist’s detective work and deft turn of phrase Original City is a page turner filled with insights about living with and defying the violence of Jim Crow America.’

Robyn Spencer-Antoine - author of The Revolution Has Come: Black Power, Gender, and the Black Panther Party in Oakland

‘There are book manuscripts and proposals that I read out of a sense of collegiality with fellow authors and others that I read out of intense curiosity and interest. Marty Dobrow’s fits both categories. By the time I finished I had only one thought. I want more, and I can’t wait to read this complete book. It will brilliantly illuminate an important and overshadowed chapter in the civil rights history of America.’

David Maraniss - Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, author of They Marched Into Sunlight: War and Peace, Vietnam and America

‘Imagine claiming the namesake of the Nation’s oldest city was a Black preacher, African bishop, and 4th Century saint…in Florida, of all places! Historian Marty Dobrow dares to do that and more in his latest work, Original City, Original Sin. Through the lens of unsung frontline veterans, the writer deftly recasts St. Augustine, Florida from ‘tourist town’ to one of the Movement’s bloodiest campaigns, where King leverages passage of the ’64 Civil Rights Act. Dobrow’s storytelling makes clear St. Augustine belongs in the table of contents of civil rights anthologies, rather than serving as a mere footnote.’

Clennon L. King - award-winning documentary filmmaker of Passage at St. Augustine: The 1964 Black Lives Matter Movement That Transformed America

‘It’s a breathtaking and revelatory excavation of a lost time in civil rights history. The segregated struggles in St. Augustine had been left in the shadows by historians, but Dobrow, through interviews, site visits, and lively, empathetic prose, has illuminated the city’s heroes and villains and brought it all back to life. I will remember Dr. Robert Hayling’s spirit for the rest of my life.’

Patrick Parr - author of The Seminarian: Martin Luther King Jr. Comes of Age and Malcolm Before X

‘Original City, Original Sin is a profound and vitally important book. With the benefit of hundreds of interviews and years of archival research, Martin Dobrow gives us a new insight into one of the most important – but far too little known – chapters of the Civil Rights era, the bloody and often terrifying struggle to desegregate America’s original city. In doing so, he provides a complex and fascinating portrait of some of the individuals who swirled around Dr. Martin Luther King during the St. Augustine campaign, from a closeted white peace activist (who would go on to become a pioneer in the alternative newspaper movement), to a black dentist and Air Force veteran who braved Klan beatings to bring justice to his adopted hometown, to a teenage girl who missed the start of high school because she was in prison after a sit-in. Here, on vivid display, is the best and the worst of America, a story both haunting and uplifting.’

Matthew Goodman - New York Times bestselling author of Eighty Days and Paris Undercover

‘Martin Luther King’s Civil Rights Movement campaign in St. Augustine, Florida, America’s oldest city, has long been an overlooked chapter in Civil Rights history. But it should be as indelible as Birmingham and Selma. Thankfully, Martin Dobrow elevates it to its rightful place. With stunning detail and poignant clarity, Original City, Original Sin tells the inspiring, often chilling story of St. Augustine as a crucial battleground in our nation’s long battle for racial justice.’

Mark K. Updegrove - President & CEO of the LBJ Foundation and ABC News Presidential Historian, author of Incomparable Grace: JFK in the Presidency