Doctor Reflects on Family's Role in Black History

As a small boy, Charles Augustus would accompany his physician father on Saturday afternoon house calls in Pensacola’s Black community. Medicine was still largely segregated in the early 1960s, but young Charles didn’t take special notice of that. Pretty much everything was segregated in the Florida Panhandle in those days.

What the child did notice was his father’s impact as he went from house to house with his black leather bag — how his father treated all his patients with dignity and in return, was regarded with the highest admiration. Those early experiences made a deep impression and led him to pursue medicine himself. “My father was my hero and I wanted to be just like him, how he cared about people,” he says.

Charles Augustus II, M.D., chief medical officer of Baptist Health Homestead Hospital

As a second-generation physician, Charles Augustus II, M.D., now serves as chief medical officer of Baptist Health Homestead Hospital. It is a job he considers a privilege in a community where he knows he makes a difference. An obstetrician and gynecologist, he estimates he has delivered about 10,000 babies in the area over more than 30 years.

He didn’t just learn to be a doctor from his dad, he says. His father was a man of principle who stood up for what is right, regardless of the difficulties.

In 1960, his father filed the landmark federal lawsuit that led to the desegregation of Escambia County’s schools. Augustus v. the School Board of Escambia County was championed by Thurgood Marshall before he became the first Black justice on the Supreme Court. The federal district court retained jurisdiction over the case for more than 40 years, allowing it to serve as the legal arena for other racial discrimination and civil rights concerns in the area.

Dr. Augustus is proud of that legacy, especially during Black History Month. His family not only lived Black history, it shaped Black history. His father, for whom Dr. Augustus is named, died in 2012.

“This is a time when I do a lot of self-reflecting,” Dr. Augustus says. “I don’t take things for granted. All in all, I look at Black History Month as being very important in being able to pass these things on to the next generation, because what I fear the most, to be honest with you, is that younger generations won’t know how important education is.”

His family paid a high price to open the doors to an equal education for all children. “During Black History Month, and really every day of my life, I try to tell the young people that education is the most powerful weapon they have against racism or adversity in life.”

Challenging the System

The desegregation lawsuit was filed on behalf of Dr. Augustus’ older sister, Karen, to allow her into first grade O. J. Semmes Elementary School, an all-white school two and a half blocks from the family’s home. The Supreme Court had ruled in 1954’s Brown v. Board of Education that separating children on the basis of race was unconstitutional but most southern states, including Florida, did all they could to impede integration.

Dr. Charles Augustus, Sr. in his office in Pensacola, Fla. in the early 1960s

As part of its attempt to circumvent the Supreme Court decision, Florida passed a Pupil Placement Law that gave authority and discretion to local school boards and superintendents in determining the school in which a child would be placed. Using that system, Karen and another little girl were denied access to O. J. Semmes Elementary School.

It took four years before Karen Augustus was able to register at that school; Charles and another sister followed. But being allowed to attend did not mean the battle was over — far from it. Most of their classmates and their classmates’ families did not exactly welcome them.

“It was hard on us,” Dr. Augustus recalls. “We would come home crying. We didn’t understand why we had to go to school where people didn’t like us.”

Meanwhile, the lawsuit proceeded in federal court with the help of the NAACP. And while the Augustus family may have been regarded as heroes in the Black community, challenging the system made them targets.

“During that time, my father’s life was threatened on a constant basis,” Dr. Augustus says. “There were drive-by shootings at our home. I remember a cross burning, burning in our yard, and the Ku Klux Klan marching through the neighborhood. All those events took place to try to deter him from going forward in the federal courts with the suit.”

The Augustus family never wavered. “Both my mother and father kept emphasizing that they wanted the best education for us,” Dr. Augustus says.

Working for change was not only about opportunities for the Augustus children, however. “It was about principle with my father,” Dr. Augustus says. “It was something he did because he felt it was his responsibility.”

Lessons Learned

Widespread racial desegregation of Florida’s public schools was finally achieved in the fall of 1970, but only after the Supreme Court set a firm deadline. Then-Governor Claude Kirk resisted to the very end, filing an unsuccessful motion to stay the desegregation order.

It was not an easy transition. Escambia High School was the site of major interracial disturbances in 1972 and 1973 that required the school to close for a time. In the mid-1970s, the Augustus lawsuit was invoked to force the high school to abandon symbols of white racism, including the use of “Rebels” for its team name, the singing of “Dixie” at school events and the Confederate flag to represent the school. The Augustus family was no longer involved, although they filed a motion in support of the Black parents who were seeking the change.

Pompano Beach resident Karen Augustus, sister of Dr. Charles Augustus, Jr.

Despite all the ugliness they witnessed, the Augustus family maintained loving hearts. To this day, Dr. Augustus and his sister Karen, who is turning 70 and has retired to Pompano Beach, harbor no bitterness, he says. “By being bitter, we never would have gone this far and accomplished the things we’ve done. Bitterness is a pill that holds you back.”

What they endured was representative of the time, not of people, he says. “One thing about my mother and my father, they always told us there’s a lot of great people in the world, good people of all colors, and we should never forget that,” Dr. Augustus says. “They knew the trauma that we went through as kids, so they emphasized that all the time.”  

All three Augustus children were sent up north for college so they could have “a different cultural experience than in the South,” Dr. Augustus says. But even at Rutgers University in New Jersey, which Karen also attended, young Charles didn’t always fit in. Only a small percentage of African American men were seeking college degrees 50 years ago, and even fewer went on to medical school.

Mae Augustus, mother of Homestead Hospital's Charles Augustus II, M.D., was active in civil rights

“I remember in my first class, one of my classmates asked me, how did you get here? I didn’t understand what he was asking me at first, but then it dawned on me… I just said, ‘Well, I guess my grades and test scores were good enough to put me here,'” he says. Dr. Augustus loves that story because of how it turned out: “After that, that guy and me, we became good friends and great classmates.”

Things have improved, but society is still evolving, Dr. Augustus says. He knows that from watching his own two children — a registered nurse and an aspiring attorney — navigate their own challenges. Karen’s children became a Navy officer and a doctor.

“Obviously times have changed a lot. They didn’t go through what I went through, but on every level, there is still some systemic racism that they will come and tell me about,” Dr. Augustus says. “I tell them the same thing my father told me — that you meet adversity head on. You work — you work hard — and you don’t let anyone stop you from reaching your goals.”

Making a Home in Homestead

His medical training complete, Dr. Augustus settled into a prestigious job in Los Angeles for several years, treating patients from Beverly Hills and other well-to-do communities. It was a great place to practice, a great life. But it wasn’t right for him.

“I woke up one morning and said, what am I doing here? What is my purpose? And I left that and came to Homestead,” he recalls. At the time, Homestead was a poor agricultural community with only one OB-GYN within a 30-mile radius, he says.

“People thought I had a hole in my head. They said, you’ve got to be mad. You’re leaving Cedars-Sinai to go to Homestead? Where is Homestead?” he says. “I said, I’m going to take care of people who need to be taken care of.” And he never looked back.

Baptist Health Homestead Hospital

That desire to serve was deeply ingrained by his family. Dr. Augustus can trace their military service over three generations. And he watched his father put the needs of others over his own comfort for years.

“I carry with me the thing he told me when I graduated from medical school, and I keep it dear to my heart. It is part of my soul,” Dr. Augustus says. “When I graduated, he said, ‘Son, you should treat every patient like they’re your family. That way you’ll never make a bad decision. All your decisions will made with a good heart and a good soul.’ And that’s the way I practice medicine.”

In that way, he honors his father and his family’s sacrifice every day.

“He left us children to live out his legacy, and we’re leaving our children, and hopefully they’ll leave their children,” Dr. Augustus says. “I think his most important accomplishment was leaving us here to continue to do what he thought was right. I live every day with that little voice in the back of my head, the voice of my father telling me to do the right thing, to make sure I treat people well.”

Today’s world may not be perfect, but Dr. Augustus has hope for the future.

“I think my father would say we’ve come a long way if he were alive today,” Dr. Augustus says. “He would say, we’ve come a long way, but we still have a long way to go. That sums it up — we still have a long way to go, and we have to keep emphasizing what’s important: education, education, education.

“That’s what I learned from what I went through, and I pass that on to everybody who is willing to listen to me.”