Special Series: The Election Day Massacre. Part 2.

to vote. Our grandmother was one of the most rags females, and the word grave is probably not strong enough. She was not afraid of anything, nor anybody nobody. That's Janice Nelson and her brother, Pastor Stephen Nunne. Their grandmother was Caretha Perry Caldwell. She was a constant presence in their

lives growing up in Tampa, Florida. She just decided, for whatever reason, to talk to Steve and I when we were kids, to just, you know, tell us this story, really the story of what happened in Caretha's hometown of Koe, Florida on Election Day nineteen. I remember driving over to her home that particular morning because I wanted her to make me breakfast. She had the old iron skillet pan and she would fry up some reb bacon and grits

and eggs. Here's what Caretha Perry wanted her grandchildren to know. When she was a teenager, her father, Julius July Perry, and his good friend Mose Norman were prosperous landowners. There were leaders of the sizable black community in a central Florida town called the Koe. On election day nineteen twenty, Mose Norman tried to vote. A few hours later, an armed white mob surrounded the Perry's family farmhouse. Caretha Perry told her grandchildren that before long, the white men were

shooting into the house. It was surreal. I really I couldn't believe it. I couldn't wrap my head around it. And yet I knew it was real. It makes sense to me now. Then it didn't really make sense. You know. I knew this, I knew it happened, but I just didn't take that in at that time. As a child, I couldn't. I couldn't fanthom all of that. Caretha told

them she was shot in the arm. She wanted me to know about the bullet will so she would always show me in point to it, and then of course after she did that, she would tell me, um, you know about what took place. I saw her pain, but I also knew she wanted me to know how courageous she was, and she was willing to stay there next to her dad to the death if it. If it was going to take that, she had every intent to

do that. It hurt her, and yet it drove her also to be very angry, and she did not really want to mention the name of o Koe or ever returned to Okoe again. I'm Eugenius Robinson. You're listening to the Election Day Massacre from Ozzie Media. Warning. This episode contains graphic descriptions of racial violence. There was some sort of a confrontation and they knew that July heard and those nominal among the activists, Bobbin thought, so the attention

of the white people sort of focused on them. Marvin Dunn is the author of a history of Florida through Black Eyes. The initial group that went out was led by an n named Sam Salisberry, who was a well known white man, very popular man, not a law enforcement officer, but was deputized to go out and find out what happened to the the Poles. Sam Salisbury was a veteran, a former Army colonel. Marvin Dunn says, a heavily armed white man he led to July Perry's farmhouse called themselves a posse.

Paul Ortiz, a historian at the University of Florida, did seminal research on the incident. In a sense, what they're trying to just pacify him, to kind of take him out of the equation. They feel if they can silence him, then they can stop all this voting nonsense and save white supremacy. What happened at July Perry's house? Why Why did it get so violent so quickly? Pamela Schwartz, chief your read of the Orange County Regional History Center put

together a major exhibition of the Koe massacre. Who actually shot who? Who actually said what? There's so many different versions. July Perry's daughter, Caretha Janice Nelson, and Stephen Nunn's grandmother was inside the house when the mob showed up. She told me that at a certain point in time, um, some of the white residents men of the city of o Koe came to their home and basically made a demand for a father to come outside, and they wanted to talk. I've always owned a gun, and you know,

I grew up in a gun culture. And you know, someone comes up to my doorstep and tells me that I need to to come out of my house unarmed, and they want to talk with me. Um, that's a threat. And when Sam Salisbury demanded July Parr to come out of this house, Perry came out of his house and Um asked to go back inside to get his coat.

And that's one of this this struggling food. Someone attempted to force their way in and there was some gunfire, both from Um those outside of the house firing in, and from her and her father inside of the house firing out. She said that the gunfire was so great that you could see the bullet tracers coming through all angles in the house, just flying in all over the places. Careita was not the only person shot that night. Her

father was shot multiple times. He told her that he wanted her to get her mother and the children out of the house. Careita's mother, Estelle, was not in good health. Careita's brothers and sister were young children. I felt like he was saying, you know what on the captain of the ship here and so guess what, you guys, go get out if you can. But I've got to stay. I think even if he hadn't been wounded he brought, he would he was gonna stay in fight to the

bitter end no matter what. She recalls asking herself and him, you know how we're going to get out because they were surrounded, and he said, pray, and the Lord I'll show you away. And she says she started praying, as the Lord, help us to get out of or help me to get my mom and my brother's and sister out of here. And she said, Um, there was a caphole or some type of an open means in the

bottom of the door. She lifted the little hatch, and she said that there was a beam of light light from the moon, but it was just this beam of light that shined the path through this particular high growth or corn field. And she said they proceeded on their stomachs to crawl through that path that had been illuminated. And she said while they were couli, she said, um, we could see the feet of the men who were

surrounding the home. Some of them, we could literally see their feet and we could hear them talking and and still firing, and yet they never saw us. Caretha, A Stelle, and the children escaped through the field. Members of the white mob would later claim that quote thirty seven armed negroes in quote participated in the shootout, but it's more likely that it was just the Perry family and a couple of hired hands who held off the assailants. At least six members of the white mob were wounded in

the gun battle. Two others died. They were killed that friendless fire. Other white men shot through the house and killed their comrades. And I found this out by examining the funeral home records of the Manuel Derek, which included a note from the sheriff documenting that the men had been killed by friendly fire. It's one of the few

records of what happened that night. You know, there's all of these details that will never factually, no, there's just no way, because no records and accounts were kept, no full investigation was done. Perry's family made it to safety, but not for long. July, Perry's wife and daughter, Estella and Caretha, respectively, are captured. They're taken to the jail in Tampa, Caretha and a Stell were charged with murdering the two members of the white mob who were killed.

The charges were eventually dropped, but not before Caretha and her mother had spent a month in jail. She said they came in and told them that they were free to go, but to never ever return to Okoe again. Years later, Careta Perry was asked by an Orlando newspaper if she had ever gone back to a Koe. She replied, no, God, I don't ever want to see it, not even on a map. H In Mildred Board was a little girl

in the next town over a Papca, Florida. Ms. Board has since passed away, but she recorded in oral history a few years ago. We're playing excerpts of the courtesy of the Orange County Regional History Center. It's one of just a few firsthand accounts of the events of that election day. The night of the riot, most Non came to this house, and I remembered that he had on

a night shirt. And I don't know whether my dad came with him or he got that ball, and they brought him on hire and my dad said to him, well, most how did you get out of Okoe. He said, just like a rabbit in the wind, I shall never forget it. Most Norman eskipped from a koe in his car. There were reports that he eventually settled up north in New York City. July Perry did not escape. He meted out of the farmhouse into a nearby sugarcane field, but

he was soon discovered. His little dog betrayed him. When July Perry was shot, he went down in the cane padge and Jip was the little dog's name. He went down and barred, and that's when the mob found him in the king page. The deputized mob arrested Perry. There are so many different stories they shot him there, but they supposed to have carried him at the two the police station in Okoe, but you know that can remember

there wasn't a police station in the court. More likely July Perry was taken to the police station in Orlando, a much bigger town. Word gets to Orlando as far away as Orlando that there's a Negro uprising. But that's a code for Negroes are trying to vote, and so Carlo's of white people begin h mobilizing from as far away as Orlando. I mean drive to Koe. There's an electronic cybordin in Orlando and it's used in election day, but not only to tally votes. Then someone changes that

sign board to direct people to a Koe. Fifty car loads of white men from Orlando descended on the black neighborhoods and a Kowe. It's like, you know, I'm a third generation military veteran, and so when I look at places like a Koe, I see intelligence, I see supply, I see planning. And what I mean by this is that carloads of white individuals, many of them, start from Orlando, and they drive all the way into Koe and they knew who to target, they knew who the leadership was named.

Drive to a Koe and they began to torch and burn and loot and village this this entire community. That evening and into the night, white vigilantes sit fire to black people's homes, businesses, and churches. In a cold they shot at people trying to escape the flames. I mean, basically, people are defending their homes as this white you know, para military operation is tearing through their their their neighborhoods.

People put up a defense in a koe. They don't just lay down and offer themselves up today to the firing squad, if you will. But we could smell somebody say well, how would you smell the smoke? As they act can sumel the smoke coming from Africa. So it was something that you could sume out of smoke. You knew something was going on. It's one of the most dramatic days in American history all across the state. You know what happens in for it is really an example.

It's kind of a metaphor for American you know, American history and systematic purging, ethnic cleansing of black people. That's really the outcome. We don't like to use the term ethnic cleansing unless we can use in Eastern Europe, right, We don't like to use the word of gram unless we can use it in you know, in Africa or you know, someplace else. But it happens here. There is no way we will ever factually probably know how many

black people were killed that night. Records were intentionally not kept. Given the current research, we as historians will say that at least four black people were murdered, but many accounts put the death toll much higher. Between thirty and sixty black residents were killed. Historian Marvin Dunn, they've learned such on the Black Union. We don't know if they were suppos burned up to those houses or not. Probably that weren't. Basically, you had a choice. You can leave and get shot,

or you can stay and burn. Uh. And they burned to death, and they were put in Popper's caskets and buried in a mass grave. Once the white mob started burning people's homes and churches, people left. Every single black person in a Koe that night, living or visiting, lost something, their sense of safety, their home, their property, whether they were a renter or a landowner, um sometimes their life. Those who survived the flames and gunfire escaped into the

surrounding swamps. The Florida Times Union reported the next day the black survivors were seen walking along highways many miles from a Koe. In the weeks and months that followed, virtually every single black person fled the town. And then it looked like refugees from from a war zone. Now those those are the pans. We have people leaving in wagons with all of their possessions. White people lining the roads, cheering, jeering,

you lost. We won. A day that had begun with hopes of a better life and a stronger democracy in Florida came to an almost unthinkable end as a coe burned into the night. Back in Orlando, another violent crowd had gathered. July Perry is in mortal danger in the jail in Orlando. He is taken by a lynch mom, Pamela Schwartz. He is brutalized. There are many versions of what happened to him, some very very descriptive and graphic,

but he is taken, is lynched. He's hanged. If you leave a Papa and going through the country Club road of block from Colonial, there was an old tree. I don't know where's the same old creep, but there is a big old tree right now. They are turned him up and let him hang from that tree for a wow. The tree was near the entrance to the Orlando Country Club, by some accounts, in view of the house of John Cheney, a white judge who tried to help black citizens of

a coale vote. The story went that July was intentionally hanged, um, you know, in view of Chinese house, but that it was across this lake and it was up by Country Fund at the time, the way the trees and everything were, like when we look back at historic photos of that lake in different things like, I don't think anybody could have seen anything from the judge's house. So I think that that is a thing that became part of the lore. But there was an unmistakable message. That's what was about

historian Paul Ortiz. It was really about sending a lesson to the entire black and white and his communities. You know, whether it was in the Southwest or in Florida, wherever. We're in charge here and we don't follow the law, we are the law. A local black undertaker took down Perry's corpse from the tree the next day. Oh, he had done so many things to his body. There wasn't too much left hanging because they had just put his body up in pieces, but they took whatever they could

and am show. They embombed him and they buried him. The terror inflicted on the black sessens of a coo. We didn't end with election day. The story has always gone that everybody left immediately the black community left, they never came back. The story after it's far more nuanced and horrific. I think personally um then that there's an official cover up that goes on for decades after the event. There's just so so much to the story. I think the most horrific thing is that we don't know, and

we don't know by design. By design, we don't have records, We don't have names for the people who were killed. We don't know what homes burned and which ones don't. We don't know what happened to people and where they went. What we do know is that the terror in a Koe was not carried out only by people in masks and robes. Much of it was committed openly, and the campaign to keep black people from voting in Florida was not limited to anonymous letters from the Ku Klux Klan.

Editorials were printed in the most prominent newspapers in the state. When the Atlanto Sentinel, the Mommy Heralds say that white supremacy, that our foundation, the foundation of our civilization, White supremacy is in danger. We have to take them seriously. And when we take them seriously, we realize that they're going to do anything they can to break up any challenge

to their power system. And this is why so many white people descend upon it color because they're trying to send a lesson to that not only are you not going to vote today, You're never going to vote. What happened in the Koe was not just about one election. What happened next would take years to orchestrate and execute. In Part three of the Election Day Massacre, where did everybody go? And then you look for the families and the histories and you try to find where they are

today and you can't find people. You can't find them. They just lost and gone. Nobody's ever held responsible in any way, shape or form for what happens out of Koe. It was government supported landa The script is says thou shalt not steal. They stole it and they need to give it back. M This episode of Flashback, The Election Day Massacre was written by Sean Braswell and voiced by me Eugene S. Robinson, was produced by Maeve mcgoran and or A Oh Diggi Zua. Chris Haff engineered our show. H