Special Series: The Election Day Massacre, Part 2

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. Our grandmother was one of the most greatest 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 twenty. 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 Careta 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 panthom all of that Caretha told

them she was shot in the arm. She wanted me to know about the bullet wound, 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 O Koe 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 Hear and those nominal among the activists of I've been voting, 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 a man named Sam Salisberry, who was a well known white man, very popular man, not a law enforcement officer, but was depotas to go out and find out what happened to the pole. 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 Ortis, a historian at the University of Florida, did seminal research on the incident. In a sense where 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? Pemla Schwartz, chief curate 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 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 Parry to come out of this house, Parry came out of his house and Um asked to go back inside and 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 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 probably 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 cat hoole or some type of an opening in the bottom of the door. She lifted the little hatch, and she said that there was a beam of light like 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 calling. 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 Estelle and the children escaped

through the field. Members of the white mob would later claim that quote thirty seven armed negroes in quot 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 us out by examining the funeral home records of the Manuel They which included a note from the sheriff documenting that the men had been killed that 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, a Stella and Caretha, respectively, are captured. They're taken to the jail in Tampa. Careta 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 returned to Oh Koe again.

Years later, Careta Perry was asked by an Orlando newspaper if she had ever gone back to Koe. She replied, no, God, I don't ever want to see it, not even on a map. 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. In Mildred Board was a little girl in the next town over a Popca, 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 first hand 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 nightshirt. And I don't know whether my dad came with him or he got that fall.

And they brought him on here, and my dad said to him, well, molest how did you get out of Okoe? He said, just like a rabbit in the wind. I shall never forget it. Most Norman escaped 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 made it 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 page and Jip was the little dog's name. He went down and barred, and that's when the mob found him in the cane page. The deputized mob arrested Perry. There's so many different stories they shot him there, but they supposed to have care of him. A thought two the police station in Okoe. But you know, as I can remember, there wasn't a police station in the course. 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 uprise. Same but that's a code for negroes are trying to vote, and so carloads of white people begin h mobilizing from as far away as Orlando. I mean, drive to a koe. There's an electronic synboard in Orlando and it's used on election day, but not only to tally of votes. Then someone changes that sign board to direct people to a koe. All right, fifty carloads 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. Then drive to a Koe and they begin 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 cobe. They shot at people trying to escape the flames. I mean, basically, people are defending their homes as this white you know, pair of 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 and smell the smoke coming from Africa. So it was some thing that you could swme out with 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 what happens in fo It is really an example. It's kind of a metaphor for American you know, American history and the 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 wrong 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 they 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 burned the whole section of the black community. We don't know if these spokes 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 that black survivors were seen walking along highways many miles from a koe, and 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. That those those are the descriptions. 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 cooee 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 lunch 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 role of block from Colonial There was an old tree. I don't know where the same old cree. There is a big old tree right now. They are tanned him up and let him hang from that tree for a while. 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 coal we vote. The story went that July was intentionally hanged, um what you know, in view of Chinese house, but that it was across this lake and it was up by country club 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 house. So I think that that is a thing that became part of the lore. But there was an unmistakable message.

That's what Lynch was about. Historian Paul Ortiz. It was really about sending a lesson to the entire black and white and Hispanic 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 Parry'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 Sitessens of Akoe 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 is far more nuanced and horrific, I think, personally, um than 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 rented in the most prominent newspapers in the state. When the Atlanto sentin older Mommy Harolds say that white supremacy, that our foundation, the foundation of our civilization, White supremacy is

a 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 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 asso go on. Nobody's ever held responsible in any way, shape or form for what happens out of Koe. It was government supported landa. The scripture says, thou shalt not steal. They stole it, and they need to give it back.

This episode of flashback. The election Day massacret was written by Sean Braswell and voiced by me Eugene S. Robinson, was produced by Maeve mcgren and Theory Oh Diggi Zula. Chris Haff engineered our show.