Robert King High

High was a strong supporter of civil rights. As mayor he set up a panel in 1967 to hear job grievances from African Americans. High was involved in the successful effort to integrate lunch counters in Miami. He publicly backed the public accommodations section of Civil Rights Bill of 1964 while campaigning for governor. Although he had received death threats to prevent his speaking in Pensacola, High told a crowd there that "Segregation is wrong. It is evil and un-American."

Robert King High died of a heart attack less than a year later, on August 30, 1967.

In 1966, High was the Democratic Party nominee for governor of Florida, but he was defeated by Republican Claude Kirk in an upset election at a time when the Democratic Party generally still dominated state politics.

High ran for governor again in 1966 under the slogan, "Integrity is the issue". Governor Burns charged that Robert F. Kennedy was behind High's campaign, pointing to three High campaign aides who had previously worked for Sargent Shriver, a Kennedy ally. Kennedy denied taking sides. High had been close to the late President John F. Kennedy; he was the first elected official in Florida to support Kennedy's 1960 presidential campaign. Burns claimed to have the support of President Lyndon B. Johnson and Vice President Hubert Humphrey, but the White House denied taking sides. Many conservative Democrats in Florida were alienated by High's racial views and ties to the Kennedys. High was from Miami, and people in the rest of Florida believed that urban Miami and Dade County represented high taxes and liberalism; the region was considered suspect.

During the 1966 primary campaign, a seat became vacant on the Miami city commission. High appointed M. Athalie Range, a black woman, to the seat. Range had led in the primary for a seat on the commission in the 1965 election, but lost to a white man in the run-off by a small margin after her race was made an issue in the election. Range was the first black person to serve on the Miami City Commission. She twice won reelection on her own. Later she was the first black person appointed to head a Florida state agency.

In June 1965, High helped convince the American Football League to place an expansion franchise in Miami, which was named the Miami Dolphins. Also in 1965, Governor Burns proposed a large highway construction bond issue for Florida. High campaigned vigorously against the road bond measure, and it was defeated. The same year High was re-elected to his fifth term as mayor of Miami.

In 1964, High was initiated as an honorary brother in the Alpha Phi chapter of Alpha Kappa Psi at the University of Florida.

High first entered the race for governor in 1964. He announced that he would refuse to accept large campaign donations, and traveled the state in a DC-3. The Miami News was the only newspaper in the state to endorse High. Until his candidacy, Democratic candidates for governor of Florida had supported segregation, some more strongly than others. The Democratic-dominated legislature at the turn of the century had passed a new constitution that disenfranchised most blacks, a status that was enforced until after passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

High broke with the Democratic tradition, publicly supporting the public accommodations section of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and promising to promote racial equality. He said that equal treatment of all Americans was the "most sensible issue of our times". High came in second out of five contenders in the Democratic primary, but lost the run-off to Jacksonville mayor Haydon Burns, who was elected as governor. (Florida had not elected a Republican governor since the end of Reconstruction, due to disenfranchisement of the black (and Republican) vote.)

In 1963 Mayor High had a heart attack; he was 39 years old. He soon recovered and returned to his duties as mayor.

In the early 1960s, to stop strong Republican presidential candidates from influencing the vote for governor, the Democratic-dominated legislature of Florida moved the election years for governors to fall between presidential elections. For the transition, the governor elected in 1964 would serve only two years, but would be eligible to run again in 1966 for a full four-year term.

High won re-election in 1959, and was joined by a slate of newly elected, reform-minded city commissioners. High's reform efforts drew national attention, and he was named one of a hundred outstanding young Americans by Life magazine. With a new majority on the city commission, High worked with them to reform the way the city bought insurance. Previous practice had been for each commissioner to give a share of the city's insurance to whomever they chose as a form of patronage. In order to ensure that each commissioner could disburse an equal share of the insurance business, buildings were divided into "parts" insured by different companies.

High spoke Spanish well, and made a number of goodwill trips to Latin America. He exchanged visits with several heads of state of Latin American countries. Working with City Manager Melvin Reese, High established the Torch of Friendship in downtown Miami as a symbol of relations between Miami and Latin America. In 1959 High was sent to Cuba as part of a delegation trying to re-establish tourism between the United States and Cuba. The delegation was snubbed by Fidel Castro, who failed to keep several appointments with them. The delegation eventually gave up and returned to the United States. As the Cuban Revolution proceeded, and the U.S. blockade and embargo against Cuba tightened, Cuban refugees flooded into the United States, particularly Florida. High worked to accommodate 200,000 Cuban refugees in Miami, where they became in integral part of the city.

In 1957, Abe Aronovitz, who had been Mayor of Miami in 1953–55, invited High to run for mayor. With Aronovitz's backing, High ran on a platform of promising nothing but honest government. He did not accept any campaign contributions of more than US$250.00. With his campaign unable to afford the billboards and television advertising that other candidates were using, High supporters stood outside the Orange Bowl with home-made campaign banners on every Friday night that the University of Miami football team played a home game.

When High was discharged from the Army in 1944, he moved to Miami. Attending college with the help of the GI Bill, he graduated from the University of Miami and the Law School of Stetson University. With his law degree, High began practicing law in Miami. He soon was doing well enough to purchase a Cadillac, a speed boat, and a house.

At the end of 1942, High left Baton Rouge to enter the University of Chattanooga. He left school soon after, however, to enlist in the Army Air Corps. High seriously injured his back during basic training, and doctors inserted a steel plate to reinforce his back. He spent nearly a year in a military hospital after the operation.

Robert King High (April 9, 1924 – August 30, 1967) was an attorney and politician, a reform mayor of Miami, Florida, serving for over a decade from January 1957 until his death in August 1967. From eastern Tennessee, High moved to Florida after his service in World War II. He became active in the Democratic Party.

Robert King High was born in 1924 in Flat Creek, Tennessee, where his father was a carpenter and farmer. With the coming of the Great Depression, the High family moved to the city of Chattanooga. High began working early, delivering newspapers at the age of five, and buying a lawn mower on credit at age ten; he paid for it by mowing lawns and delivering groceries and milk. He later worked as a soda jerk. He organized a band; the members played in their ROTC uniforms until they could afford to buy tuxedos.