This is part of a series on nonviolent protest methods, which explains approaches and provides inspirational examples from history. For additional resources, please explore the Museum of Protest’s activist guides and view items in the collection.

On April 24, 1960, approximately 125 Black men, women, and children walked onto the white sands of Biloxi, Mississippi’s 26-mile beach and stepped into the Gulf of Mexico. They carried footballs, umbrellas, and picnic baskets. They had trained in nonviolent resistance and relinquished anything that could be used as a weapon—even pocketbook nail files.

What happened next would be called “the worst racial riot in Mississippi history” by the New York Times. White mobs descended with chains, tire irons, baseball bats, and firearms. Eight Black men and two white men were shot. A funeral home owner was beaten nearly to death while his wife shielded his body and the sand turned red with blood. Yet these protesters returned again and again over the next eight years, until the beaches finally opened to all races in 1968.

This was the wade-in—Method #165 in Gene Sharp’s catalog of 198 nonviolent protest methods. A deceptively simple action of walking into water that white authorities claimed belonged exclusively to them, the wade-in became one of the Civil Rights Movement’s most visceral and visually powerful tactics. It exposed the absurdity of segregation in its rawest form and generated some of the most iconic images of the struggle for equality.

Why protesters chose to wade into segregated waters

The strategic logic of wade-ins was elegant in its simplicity. Beaches and pools represented taxpayer-funded public spaces where racial exclusion was starkly visible and legally vulnerable. In Biloxi, Dr. Gilbert Mason—the physician who organized Mississippi’s first nonviolent civil disobedience action—noticed a trashcan labeled “Property of Harrison County” and realized that the beaches, rebuilt by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers with federal taxpayer funds, legally belonged to all citizens. When he demanded to see the law that prohibited him from using the beach, police couldn’t produce one. Biloxi’s mayor simply told him: “If you go back down there we’re going to arrest you. That’s all there is to it.”

This legal ambiguity made beaches ideal targets. Unlike lunch counters at private businesses, publicly funded beaches created clear grounds for constitutional challenge. When authorities arrested protesters, they created test cases that could be litigated up to federal courts. Attorney Lawson Thomas understood this in 1945 when he organized what may have been America’s first civil rights wade-in at Baker’s Haulover Beach in Miami, deliberately alerting the sheriff to ensure arrests that could be challenged in court.

Water carried profound symbolic weight as well. The spiritual “Wade in the Water” connected to the Underground Railroad, where Harriet Tubman used the song to convey coded information to escaping slaves—water represented both danger and liberation. The act of entering water carried religious overtones of baptism and purification that resonated deeply in the Black church tradition. And the ocean itself served as what one artist called “a metaphor of injustice” that protesters had to be “brave enough to wade into.”

Perhaps most powerfully, wade-ins exposed the psychological roots of segregation in raw form. Beach protests heightened the visual drama because protesters appeared in swimsuits—semi-clothed bodies that intensified white anxiety about interracial contact, particularly fears about sexuality and what segregationists called “race mixing.” You cannot segregate ocean water. When authorities claimed that only “the public” could use the beach while simultaneously denying that Black citizens were part of the public, the irrationality was laid bare for cameras and courts alike.

The first wade-ins emerge in Florida

The wade-in tactic emerged in Florida years before it gained national attention. On May 9, 1945—while World War II still raged—attorney Lawson Thomas and Dr. Ira Davis of the Negro Service Council led a small group to Baker’s Haulover Beach in Miami. Two women, May Dell Braynon and Mary Hayes Sweeting, joined them, along with two sailors. Thomas carried cash for bail, expecting arrests that would create a court case. Rather than make arrests that might generate an unfavorable ruling, county authorities instead opened Virginia Key Beach on August 1, 1945, as a segregated park “for the exclusive use of Negroes.”

A decade later, on October 3, 1955—one month after Emmett Till’s murder and two months before Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat—NAACP leader Neil Humphrey Sr. led 100 African Americans in wade-ins at Lido Beach in Sarasota. The city responded by posting “no parking” signs to turn away caravans and eventually closing parks entirely rather than integrate them.

Fort Lauderdale witnessed sustained wade-in campaigns in 1961-1962, organized by Eula Johnson (later called “the Rosa Parks of South Florida”) and Dr. Von D. Mizell. Fort Lauderdale’s beaches had been segregated since 1927, and by 1953, the only existing “colored beach” had been sold to developers, leaving Black residents with an isolated strip in the Everglades accessible only by long ferry trips. On July 4, 1961, Johnson, Mizell, and several others walked onto Las Olas Beach. White beachgoers crowded around but eventually left them alone. Subsequent wade-ins drew nearly 200 participants, with white onlookers threatening activists with bottles and bats. The Ku Klux Klan planned to ambush the July 23 wade-in with axes, but Johnson learned of the plot and contacted the FBI, whose agents stationed on nearby rooftops and in boats prevented the attack.

The city of Fort Lauderdale filed suit against Johnson and the NAACP on August 12, 1961, claiming they were a “public nuisance.” A political newspaper publisher named Gore called Johnson offering money and privileges if she would stop the protests. She refused. On July 11, 1962, a federal judge ruled against the city, effectively desegregating beaches in Broward County. In 2016, the state beach was renamed Dr. Von D. Mizell-Eula Johnson State Park in their honor.

Biloxi’s bloody beach battles

The Biloxi wade-ins represent the most violent and prolonged beach desegregation campaign in American history. Dr. Gilbert Mason, a 31-year-old physician who had started his practice in Biloxi in 1955, led the first protest on May 14, 1959, with nine people including five children. When a city policeman ordered them to leave, saying “Negroes don’t come to the sand beach,” Mason demanded to see the law he had violated. No law could be produced.

In October 1959, Mason and three other Black residents petitioned the Harrison County Board of Supervisors for beach access. When asked if they’d accept a segregated portion, Mason replied he wanted access to “every damn inch of it.” The Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission—a state spy agency—secretly investigated petition signers, examining their employment records, credit histories, and associates. One signer was fired from his city job; another man and his wife were both fired by their white employers.

Mason returned to the beach alone on Easter Sunday 1960 and was arrested as a “repeat offender.” This galvanized the Black community, and one week later, on April 24, 1960, approximately 125 protesters gathered at three sections of the 26-mile beach. They had been trained in nonviolent passive resistance. Bishop James Black recalled: “We were trained how to fall down and ball up and protect our heads and that sort of thing as opposed to fighting back.”

What followed was catastrophic violence. A white mob armed with chains, tire irons, clubs, pipes, baseball bats, cue sticks, brass knuckles, and rocks descended on the protesters. Biloxi police stood by without intervening and reportedly “recruited” the white mob. Shots were fired over protesters’ heads and into crowds. Wilmer B. McDaniel, a funeral home owner, was beaten nearly to death with chains while his wife shielded his body. Dolores Stewart Shealy had “all my teeth broken real bad” and a “big cut in the head.” One man was “kicked so much in the face that his eyes had literally turned green.”

Eight Black men and two white men suffered gunshot wounds. More than 20 Black Mississippians required medical treatment. Police arrested 71 people—68 of them Black, only 3 white. Violence continued into the night as armed white mobs drove through Black neighborhoods shooting into homes. Two Black youths—Malcomb Jackson, a member of Mason’s scout troop, and Bud Strong, beaten to death in Pascagoula Jail—were killed. Their murders were never solved.

The wade-ins continued. On June 23, 1963, 71 Black protesters and 4 white ministers participated in the final major Biloxi wade-in. Women planted a double row of hand-stitched black flags along the beach in memory of Medgar Evers, who had supported the movement before his assassination eleven days earlier. Over 2,000 white counter-protesters gathered. All 75 protesters were arrested, but this time police restrained whites from physical violence.

The U.S. Justice Department filed suit against Biloxi on May 17, 1960—the first intervention by the Civil Rights Division challenging Mississippi’s segregationist practices. City officials ignored the lawsuit and delayed court hearings for seven years. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals finally ruled in 1967 that the beaches were public and must be desegregated. Full integration came in 1968, nine years after Mason’s first wade-in.

St. Augustine: Where acid met the pool

The St. Augustine campaign of 1964 produced some of the Civil Rights Movement’s most indelible images and is credited with helping push the Civil Rights Act across the finish line. Dr. Robert B. Hayling, a dentist and former Air Force officer, had been leading local civil rights efforts since 1960. In September 1963, Hayling and three companions were kidnapped and severely beaten at a KKK rally—then charged with assaulting the Klansmen. His home was shot at in February 1964, killing his dog and narrowly missing his pregnant wife.

Martin Luther King Jr. and the SCLC arrived in St. Augustine in late May 1964, drawn by the city’s strategic vulnerabilities: its dependence on Northern tourism dollars and its upcoming 400th anniversary celebration. King called it “the most lawless place” he had ever campaigned and “the most segregated city in America.” A cottage scheduled to house King was riddled with bullets.

The beach and pool wade-ins in June 1964 generated worldwide attention. On June 17, 35 people conducted a two-hour wade-in at the whites-only beach near St. Augustine Pier. On June 24, white segregationists physically blockaded the shore, preventing protesters from reaching the water. On June 25, Ku Klux Klan members planted Confederate flags and formed a horseshoe to block integrationists. Police stormed the ocean wielding batons, dragging African American demonstrators from the water. Some protesters couldn’t swim and nearly drowned when forced into deeper water by hostile crowds. Dorothy Cotton, an SCLC leader, later said: “I remember the wade-ins because the bump hasn’t gone off my jaw yet.”

The most iconic moment came at the Monson Motor Lodge pool on June 18, 1964. Around 12:40 PM, SCLC activists including J.T. Johnson and Mamie Nell Ford jumped over a low chain fence into the whites-only pool. Hotel owner James Brock—a Baptist deacon and Sunday school superintendent—screamed “you’re not putting these people in my pool” and retrieved a 2-gallon drum of muriatic acid (hydrochloric acid) from his office. He poured the acid into the pool, screaming that he would “burn them out.” An off-duty policeman jumped in fully clothed and pummeled the protesters. Over 100 people crowded poolside, shouting threats to shoot, stone, or drown the swimmers.

The photograph of Brock pouring acid circulated worldwide as a symbol of barbaric racism. J.T. Johnson later recalled: “I tried to calm the gang down. I knew that there was too much water for that acid to do anything.” The swim-in was deliberately timed before noon to guarantee coverage on that evening’s ABC, CBS, and NBC news programs. The photo ran on front pages of the Miami Herald, New York Times, and Washington D.C. newspapers. The U.S. Senate passed the Civil Rights Act the very next day, June 19, 1964.

J.T. Johnson reflected: “I’m not so sure the Civil Rights Act would have been passed had [there] not been a St. Augustine. It was a milestone.”

Rainbow Beach: Challenging the North’s segregation

Northern wade-ins faced a different challenge: de facto rather than de jure segregation. No laws explicitly mandated separation, but custom, violence, and political indifference enforced racial exclusion just as effectively.

Chicago had a bloody history of beach violence. In 1919, a Black teenager named Eugene Williams was killed when his raft drifted toward the whites-only 29th Street beach, sparking a race riot that killed 38 people. Four decades later, beaches remained informally segregated through intimidation.

In July 1960, Harold Carr, a Black police officer, took his family to Rainbow Beach at 75th Street and was “summarily mobbed by a gang of rock-throwing white hooligans.” “Why do you come down here?” they jeered. “Can’t you feel that you’re not wanted?” This incident prompted Velma Murphy Hill, the 21-year-old head of the South Side NAACP Youth Council, to organize a wade-in.

On August 28, 1960, approximately 30 Black and white activists set down blankets at Rainbow Beach and unfolded checkerboards. After two hours, as they tried to leave singing “We Shall Overcome,” they were showered with rocks. Velma Murphy Hill was struck in the head, requiring 17 stitches, causing temporary paralysis and a limp she still has today. The attack caused her to lose a child in utero. Only one attacker was arrested—a man wielding a Molotov cocktail who said he wanted to “scare the colored people.” Police were notably absent during the violence.

The following summer, wade-ins resumed with police protection. On July 7-8, 1961, nearly 100 activists filed onto the beach, flanked by 200 police officers. Three thousand white onlookers gathered, but this time nine were arrested for attempting to attack demonstrators. Wade-ins continued weekly throughout summer 1961. By August, the Chicago Defender reported: “Peace Reigns at Rainbow Beach.” De facto segregation at Rainbow Beach had ended.

International and modern echoes

The wade-in tactic has echoed across oceans and decades. South Africa’s beaches were rigorously segregated under the Reservation of Separate Amenities Act of 1953, which was amended in 1960 to explicitly include “the sea and the sea-shore.” In Durban, over 2 kilometers of beach were reserved for whites (22% of the population), while only 650 meters served Africans (46% of the population). White beaches had amenities, shark nets, and lifeguards; Black beaches were often located next to sewage outlets. By the 1980s, beach protests challenged coastal segregation, with non-white crowds ignoring laws and occupying whites-only beaches. President F.W. de Klerk officially desegregated beaches in 1989.

In Greece, a significant beach access movement erupted in 2023-2024. The “Towel Movement” started on Paros island when residents found beaches nearly impossible to access due to privately operated loungers and umbrellas that had taken over public shoreline. Protesters “invaded” Santa Maria beach demanding space for their towels. The movement spread nationwide, forcing the government to impose fines up to €60,000 for access violations and require that 50% of beach space remain free of commercial infrastructure.

Modern American wade-ins continue to invoke this history. In August 2020, during the Black Lives Matter movement, protesters marched to Bruce’s Beach in Manhattan Beach, California—a former African American seaside resort that city leaders had seized through eminent domain in 1924 to force the Black owners from their property. Demonstrators played “Wade in the Water” as they entered the waves and dropped flowers in the ocean while calling out names of ancestors. In 2022, California returned the land to the Bruce family descendants—a landmark case of beach-related reparations.

The Martin’s Beach case in California represents an ongoing beach access battle. In 2008, billionaire Vinod Khosla purchased coastal land near Half Moon Bay and locked the only access road to a beach the public had used for over a century. The case remains in litigation as of 2025, testing whether wealthy landowners can block access to public coastal waters.

The dangerous vulnerability of water-based protest

Wade-ins carried unique physical dangers that distinguished them from other forms of civil rights protest. Protesters in bathing suits had no protective gear and limited ability to flee through water. Non-swimmers could be pushed into deeper water—as happened in St. Augustine—creating genuine drowning risks. The isolated settings of many beaches provided limited escape routes.

The weapons used against wade-in participants were brutal: chains, tire irons, baseball bats, cue sticks, brass knuckles, rocks, and firearms. Violence often occurred with police standing by or actively facilitating mob attacks. In Biloxi, police reportedly recruited the white mob that attacked protesters on Bloody Sunday.

Retaliation extended beyond physical violence. The Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission investigated protesters’ employment records and credit histories, orchestrating economic retaliation. Dr. Robert Hayling’s dental practice in St. Augustine was destroyed by the loss of white patients and ongoing threats, forcing him to relocate. Some activists lost their homes. The “St. Augustine Four”—JoeAnn Anderson, Audrey Nell Edwards, Willie Carl Singleton, and Samuel White—spent six months in jail after refusing plea bargains.

Yet protesters developed safety strategies. Attorneys attended wade-ins with cash for bail. Groups alerted authorities in advance to establish a civil disobedience framework. Chicago’s 1961 campaign secured 200 police officers for protection. Protesters arrived and left together, never alone. Training sessions taught people how to protect their heads if surrounded and to maintain discipline through singing.

The strategic power of organized water actions

Gene Sharp classified wade-ins as Method #165 in his 198 Methods of Nonviolent Action, categorizing them under Physical Intervention alongside sit-ins, stand-ins, and ride-ins. Sharp recognized that physical interventions like wade-ins can be coercive, making it impossible for opponents to maintain their policies. These tactics put opponents in a double-bind: failing to repress undermines their authority, while using violent repression increases public sympathy for resistors.

Successful wade-in campaigns shared common elements. They targeted taxpayer-funded facilities where legal arguments were strongest. They sustained action over months and years rather than staging one-off protests—Biloxi’s campaign lasted from 1959 to 1968, Chicago’s across two summers. They coordinated with legal teams to transform arrests into test cases. They cultivated media relationships, timing dramatic confrontations for maximum news coverage. And they built coalitions among churches, civil rights organizations, labor unions, and political leaders.

The campaigns also experienced setbacks. City officials deliberately delayed court proceedings—Biloxi ignored the Justice Department lawsuit for seven years. Ten times as many Black protesters were arrested as white attackers. Rather than integrate, many municipalities simply closed public pools and beaches or converted them to “private” membership clubs. The Montgomery, Alabama resort-style pool was paved over in 1959. These closures created lasting effects: the denial of pool access produced what researchers call the “African American drowning disparity cycle”—if parents didn’t swim, children didn’t learn. Today, 64% of Black youth cannot swim.

How to organize effective water-based protests

For contemporary activists considering water-based demonstrations, the historical record offers practical guidance.

Legal preparation matters. Wade-in organizers worked closely with attorneys who understood both the risks of arrest and the opportunities for legal challenge. Having lawyers present and bail funds ready transformed arrests from setbacks into strategic victories.

Training saves lives. Civil rights wade-in participants underwent extensive preparation: role-playing verbal and physical abuse, learning protective positions, practicing songs that created unity and eased fear. CORE ran month-long workshops; James Lawson’s Nashville sessions became models replicated across the movement. Key training included never going alone, parking away from action sites to prevent car vandalization, maintaining discipline through singing, and keeping together so the weakest could keep up.

Documentation creates lasting impact. The photographs from St. Augustine and Biloxi shaped national opinion far beyond the participants present. Modern organizers should consider how to capture and share evidence of both peaceful protest and any violent response.

Sustained campaigns outlast one-day events. The most successful wade-ins were not single actions but repeated demonstrations over months and years that maintained pressure until change occurred.

Coalition building amplifies power. Chicago’s wade-ins succeeded partly because the NAACP Youth Council built relationships with labor unions, teachers’ organizations, and reform-minded police leadership. When Police Superintendent O.W. Wilson committed 200 officers to protect demonstrators, the balance of power shifted decisively.

Media timing creates political leverage. The St. Augustine swim-in was deliberately scheduled before noon to make evening news broadcasts, and it occurred during the critical final days of Congressional debate on the Civil Rights Act. Strategic timing connected local action to national political opportunities.

The living legacy of those who waded in

The wade-in participants paid enormous personal costs. Velma Murphy Hill carries a permanent limp and never had children after her injuries at Rainbow Beach. Dr. Gilbert Mason spent 15 years before receiving full hospital privileges at Biloxi Regional Hospital. Dr. Robert Hayling’s career was destroyed; his former street was eventually renamed Dr. R.B. Hayling Place, and he was inducted into the Florida Civil Rights Hall of Fame in 2014, one year before his death.

Their courage opened American beaches and pools to everyone. The Monson Motor Lodge was demolished in 2003; a Hilton now occupies the site, but the front steps where King and Brock confronted each other have been preserved with a commemorative plaque. A section of U.S. Highway 90 in Mississippi is now the Dr. Gilbert Mason Sr. Memorial Highway. The U.S. National Science Foundation named an ocean research vessel after Mason. In 2016, the Florida beach where Eula Johnson and Dr. Mizell led their protests was renamed in their honor.

The wade-in remains available to anyone willing to use it. Its power comes from the elemental nature of water—a resource no one can claim to own, a medium that cannot be segregated, a space where human bodies become vulnerable and the violence of exclusion becomes undeniable. The protesters who walked into those waters knew they might not walk out again. They went anyway, and in doing so, they changed the meaning of the word “public” in America.