Special Series: The Election Day Massacre, Part 1

Procter and Gamble believes that words alone won't create change, but stories do seek share and expect the whole truth of black life. Widen the screen to widen our view. One hundred years ago, in the center of Florida, just a few miles from where Disney World stands today, there was an exodus. Hundreds of black families filed their children into wagons. They trudged all night along roads and railroad tracks and through sugarcane fields. They barely escapped with their lives.

Dozens of their loved ones did not. They were lynched, shot, burned to death in the wreckage of their own homes. Today, this is forgotten, largely missing from history books, handed down only as a secret memory between generations of the families who escaped. But in nineteen that November nine, the town of Okoe, Florida wasn't a secret. It made headlines around the world. There was a grand jury investigation, even a hearing before Congress, and Americans, black and white, knew exactly

why it had happened. They knew what it meant. This exodus was a warning to any black citizen who dared to try to vote. Yeah, I'm Eugene S. Robinson and this is the election day massacre from Assie media. In two thousand and twelve, Randolph Bracy became the first representative from a new state House district in central Florida. Less than one sixth of the members of the Florida House

were black. I I was looking for office space after I won my election, and I had recently moved to Koe, and I decided to put my office in o Koe. Koe is just a dozen miles from Disney World, but it still has the feel of a small town. It's a pretty lake, splash park for the kids, beloved ice cream stand, the perfect place to live and work. And I remember it was an African American woman, older woman, and she almost lost it. One I sold I was

moving my office to Koe. But she was from the age where she the era where she remembered that it was a sundown town where you couldn't be in Okoe unless you had some business and you had to be going before dark. Bracy, now a Florida State Senator, was shocked, but many people who live in the area longer or not. Historian Marvin Dunn is Professor Emeritus at Florida International University.

He grew up in central Florida. My father told us, told me and my brothers about picking oranges in in Okoe. When they would leave to come back to the land, so driver of the white driver at Lndridge until almost dark, they would walk out of Okoe rather than be caught there after Darkkoe is a diverse community today, and it had a thriving black population long ago, But for half

a century a Coe had almost no black residence. But this was in the ninety late nineties, and they told me, please don't tell anyone that you're coming here, that we've invited you here, that we're showing you where the black communities used to be. Paul Orts is a professor of history at the University of Florida. Don't tell anyone because it could put your life in jeopardy. It could put us in jeopardy. There are good reasons why no black

person wants to live there for so many years. A Koe resident and community historian pam La Grady, you can see that's what happened there. You can feel that energy there. It's still it's still alive and well. What happened in a Koe a century ago remains the worst incident of election day violence in US history. What happened in a Koe was not an altercation. It was more than a lynching or shooting or riot. What happened in a Koe was a massacre. And what happened is all too relevant today.

Florida is still active involved and photo suppression. And didn't even yet why she was so scared for me, And then I kind of learned the history, and I think it's so appropriate to talk about it in this year election because it is still to this date of bloody It's day in American political history. Have an on a presidential election. When a hundred years ago, African Americans in Florida were preparing for a historic election. Soldiers had come

home after serving their country in World War One. The local economy was booming, women had earned the right to vote, The promise of America seemed closer than ever before, and then in a night of unspeakable violence, everything changed. There was no question who was in charge in central Florida a century ago. Often at the time, many of law enforcement and local pol petitians here were also members of

the Ku Klux Klan. Pamela Schwartz is the chief curator of the Orange County Regional History Center in Orlando, Florida. One prominent white citizen at the time estimated that about nine of law enforcement officers, judges, and lawyers and their Coe area were clan members. There's a new rise in the Ku Klux Klan um. There's a resurgence of white supremacy. Uh, there's an active movement for white supremacists to try to

disenfranchise black voters. In the days leading up to the election in November nine, the k k k was especially active. There are marches throughout the state of Florida, Jacksonville, Daytona, Orlando of Ku Klux Klan sending that same message of do you not get out to vote if you're black or else? In Orlando, around five hundred hooded men paraded behind three figures on horseback. They used megaphones to get

their message out. Pol Or peace Is, the author of emancipation, betrayed the hidden history of black organizing a white violence in Florida from reconstruction to the bloody election of nineteen in Daytona, the night before election day, they marched through Mary mccloyd Bethune's campus, you know, and the municipal authority UM controlling the electricity actually kind of electricity, you know, to Daytona Industrial Worlds School, so that the clan could

march through with their torches and terror tactics and and accurately scary. It's just all of this stuff is boiling and boiling, and the events of November second and third send it over the top. This was an event hundreds of years in the making, from the first enslavement here up through black holes and Jim Crow laws and the suppression of of women, the suppression of black voters, the suppression in all these different ways leading up to something

like this event erupting. Five hundred years ago, Florida was under Spanish rule. It was a sanctuary if the slaves were able to escape the British colonies, but after Florida came unto the control of the United States in eighteen nineteen, President Thomas Jefferson sent the American troops to help capture former slaves and returned them to their chains. Slavery ended with the Civil War, but segregation and ideas of white

supremacy remained strong. Centta Florida was especially attractive to former Confederates. Marvin Dunn is the author of a history of Florida Through Black Eyes. Center Florida was a was a magnet for people who had lost the Civil War because keith Any Florida was untouched by the war. Uh and center Florida out of the cattle, that said, the Confederate army. So businessman and Senta Florida made money during the war while other parts of the South are being destimated by

the war. By nineteen twenty, Florida's economy was booming. The citrus industry was exploding, so a lot of black people were chanted into some to Florida for that reason to work. The town of a Koe, with its lush orange groves and farms nestled along Stark Lake, was especially attractive a number of black people, black men in particular, had managed to get property orange gross on their own. There's a man by the name of Moses Norman. Now, Moses Norman

had lived in this community for some thirty years. He was not just some you know, young guy. He was a well established individual, well known in town. He had his own car. He was known to be a labor broker. Most Norman at the time was driving around in a car that was worth about seventy five to a thousand dollars. Pamela Grady is the executive director of the July Perry Foundation. That's a Mercedes, that's a Jaguar, you know. That's what

he was driving around. And at a time when nobody even had cars, there was only maybe one or two other cars in the whole town of Koeie, you know, and here's this black guy driving through the town, this nice car. You know. They had to infuriate them. The foundation is named for most Norman's good friend, another prominent bleaxis in the koe Julius July Perry. Nothing really happened in ol koe without him. Florida State Senator Randolph Bracy.

He was kind of like a broker or even white businessman who wanted to come in and do do some farming transactions of what have you. He ran the town. July Perry and most Norman were pillars of the Koe community history. And Paul artis they were successful individuals. They're very hard workers, they were they're very good family men. Um,

they were highly respected. And the reason I mentioned the term highly respected, and this is the most important element I think about Most Norman and Perry and why why they represent such a threat to white supremacy Because these two exceptionally respected men were involved in an exceptionally threatening

activity helping black citizens vote. In the wake at World War One, black Floridians had organized a remarkable statewide voter registration movement, and the movement really crested and built momentum as African American soldiers returned from from Europe. A lot of black lessons came back to the South and the third in Europe, and they were not going to accommodate themselves to the racism that was in there in that community. And Most Norman and Gelatter in particular were among those

who came back with that attitude. The two veterans joined hundreds of other Fluoridians who were mobilizing to combat white supremacy. In nineteen twenty, there is a huge black voter registration drive that supported not only by the black community but also by white Republicans, not all of them, most of them. This was at a time when most African Americans were

members of Abraham Lincoln's Republican Party. In many places in the South, blacks not even joined the Democratic Party, And thanks to the Nineteenth Amendment, women would be voting for president for the first time in nineteen twenty. This is a whole new voting block and that includes black women. And what it's doing is it's causing a lot of tension. People don't always accept change, and so with this you also see sort of a resurgence and an ongoing rise

with white supremacy. In the Kuklux Klan clan members were not the only white supremacists trying to hold back the new wave of black voters. Once the white you know, white white elites and white media and white leaders realize this is happening, they use their op ed space, their their banner headlines. White women, It's up to you to save the republic. This is the greatest crisis in our nation's history, and a typical op ed will say, Uh, white ladies, do you want your Negro washer women to

lord over you, to take control? Do you want that Negro custodian to marry your daughter? The threats heated up as the election approached. White supremacies in a crisis, they're much more honest and races today because they're very blunt about it. They're like, white supremacy is our way of life as an American. Some white Republicans in Orlando, including a local judge named John Cheney, helped July Perry and

most Norman organized black voters. About a month before the echoing massacre, they receive a letter from the Florida ku Klux Klan signed by the ku Klux Klan that basically says, stop or else, sir, while stopping in your beautiful little city this week, I was informed that you are in the habit of going out among the negroes of Orlando and delivering lectures explaining to them how to assert their rights.

The grand master of the Florida ku Klux Klan reminded them what happened when white people tried to help black voters during reconstruction you will remember that these things forced the loyal citizens of the South to organize clans of determined men who pledged themselves to maintain white supremacy and to safeguard our women and children. We shall always enjoy white supremacy in this country, and he who interferes must face the consequences. So there is a threat, there is

and this is this is a primary starts. We have the original in our museum collection that that that states this. Just days before the Echoing massacre, there are marches throughout the state of Florida. If you ask a black person to register a vote Florida, you're asking them to take the risk. You're asking them to risk their lives. You're asking them to risk their livelihoods, You're asking them to

risk their physical safety. On the morning of November, two black stittens of a Koe, Florida made a heroic decision. They ignored the clan marches, the torches, the letters, and the threats. They prepared to exercise their most fundamental democratic right to vote. They knew it would be challenging, but they had no idea of the horrors that awaited them. This three part limited series is brought to you by

Procter and Gamble. Procter and Gamble believes that words alone won't create change, but stories do seek share and expect the whole truth of black life widen the screen to widen our view. Well. On election day, from what we know, you know Most Norman and July Perry are with African Americans who are trying to vote. Historian Paul Ortisse. And what happens in the koe is again similar to what happens in many parts of the state. People are standing in in a line. We don't know how many people,

and if they're black, you're not allowed to vote. Historian Marvin Dunn. This was a plan attempt to challenge the denial of the right to vote in Coe and Center more broadly. Armed white deputies declared themselves poll monitors, poll workers challenged black voters. Names mysteriously disappeared from the voter rolls, poll taxes, it was claimed, had not been paid, and a koe anyone turned away from voting had to go to the local Justice of the Peace to contest it,

and he had conveniently gone fishing that day. Most Norman was among the people who tried to cast a ballot, and he um goes to the polls to vote, he has turned away. His name had been placed on the stricken list for voting, and he was never restored. They claimed that most Norman, a wealthy landowner deeply involved in voter registration efforts, had somehow failed to pay his own poll tax. There are conflicting accounts of what happened after

most Norman was turned away at the polls. One of the biggest problems with this event is how few true primary source documents there are because why they weren't kept intentionally. It's it's intentional erasure of the history Black Systens of a Koe and their descendants have spent decades trying to unearth what exactly happened on election Day nineteen twenty. Pamela Grady, I'm a resident of a Koe and know nobody knows

these people. You have forty thousand residents, you know, and most of them not even know that the land they're living on. What happened? To history? To rich history, Pamela Schwartz collected oral histories and documents for an exhibition at the Orange County Regional History Center. There are hundreds and hundreds of versions. We actually took one hundred and twenty nine and synthesize them into one mega account in the exhibit. So it's this huge, like twenty ft wall. It's like

fourteen pages of text, and it's all in line. You can see where the twists and the faults of memory and the lies and all of these different ways the story has um changed over one hundred years. In one version of the story, most Norman returned to the Pulse with his shotgun, sparking an altercation with armed white deputies. In another more likely account, Norman took his case to

Judge John Cheney and Orlando historian Paul Artis. Again, he's trying to find ways to let, you know, people in power know that this corruption is happening in a koe, you know. But the problem is, even he was able to contact similar Judge Chaney, there's really nothing Judge Chaney could do. Um if he's able to contact the supervisor of elections in Orange County, that guy is not going

to do anything. Judge Cheney is said to have advised Norman to go back to the polls in a Koe and get the names of people preventing black citizens from voting. This is likely to file a complaint to lawsuit. But it was a very dangerous errand according to one version of events, Norman enlisted his good friend July Perry to help.

The most important thing I think about most Norman Julie Perry is that black people trusted them, and both men felt irresponsibility because of that trust to see things through on election day. And that is a testament to their you know, their in her courage. I mean, they could have stayed home. The safest thing for black people on election day was stay home, but neither man played it safe.

Historian Marvin Dunn. The two men went back to the polls. Uh, they were armed white men there who chased them away. There was some sort of a confrontation and this men, these two men went to July Darry's home retreated there. Pastor Stephen Nunn is the founder of the July Perry Foundation and president of its board. He's July Perry's great grandson. His grandmother. July Perry's daughter, Carritha, was a teenager when

Mois Norman was turned away at the polls. She told me that he wasn't allowed to vote, and a conflict took place, and in the process that was a fight that broke out. That fight ended up at the Perry's

front doorstep. She told me that ultimately, uh, there was a rumor that spread around town that um, the black residents of Okoe had gathered at July Perry's home to um discuss a vote to go back and demand their right to vote, if you would, um what she said was not true in the following hours that this white mob actually they called themselves a posty, had been deficized actually to go and find out about the disturbance of the polls. And they knew that July Parry and those

norminal were among the activists involved in voting. So the attention of the white people sort of focused on them, but they weren't really sure about it was involved in terms of the the rumor that Blakes were armed at July Perry's home that circulated very quickly in the white community following the confrontation at the polls. Now Anna's Burlie Jones, black man who was a former slave who was zonned by lucle white man and Burlie Jones who at Clinton Central.

Uncle Tom told the white people that blacks were arming themselves and were ensconced into left her at his home and that's where the mob went to to let hers house. At some point later that night, after the polls closed, a white mob, an armed white mob, goes to the home with his friend and fellow labor broker, July Perry,

and violence breaks out. Bull shots are fired. She told me that at a certain point in time, Uh, some of the white residents men of the city of o Koe came to their home and basically made a demand for father to come outside, and they wanted to talk, and of course he refused and said no. And she did tell me that there was an attempt to force someone attempted to force their way in, and there was

some gunfire. There's a lot of people that are still trying to cover up the story and so because so for example, when I first came to Florida in the summer UM, I was told by white middle class people, even scholars, Oh, Paul, why are you coming to Florida. We've had such progressive race relations here. We didn't have Jim Crow like they had it. You know, you should go to Uh, we're not nearly as bad as Mississippi, Paul. Uh,

you know you should go to Georgia. What was as funny because I had already been I've already done field work in Mississippi, are already done field work in Georgia because when I talked to black Floridians, they told me, oh my gosh, who is telling you this nonsense? You know? Or it was just as bad as any other state in terms of race relations. So there was really no place for black people to find sanctuary from that. That kind of the kind of white violence, you know that

that occurred in Orange County and other places. So it's an organized attack. It's organized assault on neighborhoods, you know, on on a community. And the next episode of the election day massacre, she said that, um, the gunfire was so great that you could see the bully tracers coming through all angles in the house, just flying all over

the place. I mean, basically, people are defending their homes as this white you know, a pair of military operation and is tearing through their their their neighborhoods, and they began to torch and burn and loot and pillage this entire community. There is no way we will ever factually probably know how many black people were killed that night. Records were intentionally not kept. One man told him I shot seventeen Negroes. He shot seventeen himself, and he was

bragging about it. Basically, you had a choice. You can leave and get shot or you can stay. Barn uh and they burned to death. We don't like to use the term ethnic cleansing unless we can use in Eastern Europe, right, but it happens here. 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 Hoff engineered our show. H