This chapter explores the first phase of SCLC involvement in the civil rights crisis in St. Augustine. Having connected with the organization—and having pledged his own nonviolent cooperation (no small thing for Robert Hayling)—the dentist writes a letter to college chaplains in New England, inviting them to bring students down to the city to help in the struggle during their Easter vacation.

A number of students at tony institutions like Yale and Dartmouth and Amherst agree to come. Much of the chapter is shared through the perspective of Amherst sophomore Marshall Bloom, who is persuaded to make the trip by the college’s chaplain, Lew Mudge. A group from Amherst drives down and meets first with Dr. Hayling at his office on Bridge Street in Lincolnville. Hayling tells them that they will hear a number of perspectives on the city in the coming days, and that they will have to come to their own sense of the truth and how to respond to it.