Sam was nervous that the driver might return with others capable of who knows what. The possibility existed that he might be lynched for not moving to the back of the bus.As he remembered his nervousness, I have a time lapse painting of a bus fire that occurred in the height of the civil rights movement. The freedom riders were, backs and whites who rode the bus together in solidarity but were beaten and the bus was lit on fire by white supremacists.
From this moment onward, the camera pans up and I painted smoke as it wafted out of the open bus door. This bus fire happened the month I was born and thus after the events that transpired in 1957. The Freedom Riders were attacked by a mob in Anniston, Alabama. The mob attacked the bus with baseball bats and iron pipes. They also slashed the tires. When the hobbled bus pulled over, the mob pulled riders off the bus and beat them with pipes. Then they set the bus on fire.
This film is now on display at the Orange County Regional History Center (65 East Central Blvd Orlando FL) for the new exhibition, Yesterday This Was Home, about the 1920 Ocoee Voting Day Massacre. The exhibition is open until February 14, 2021. The 1920 Ocoee Massacre in Orange County, Florida, remains the largest incident of voting-day violence in United States history.
Events unfolded on Election Day 1920, when Mose Norman, a black U.S. citizen, attempted to exercise his legal right to vote in Ocoee and was turned away from the polls. That evening, a mob of armed white men came to the home of his friend, July Perry, in an effort to locate Norman. Shooting ensued. Perry was captured and eventually lynched. An unknown number of African American citizens were murdered, and their homes and community were burned to the ground. Most of the black population of Ocoee fled, never to return.
This landmark exhibition will mark the 100-year remembrance of the Ocoee Massacre. The exhibition will explore not only this horrific time in our community’s history but also historical and recent incidents of racism, hatred, and terror, some right here at home.
The content will encourage reflection on a century of social transformation, the power of perspective, and the importance of exercising the right to vote, and will ask what lessons history can inspire moving forward.
To promote safe distancing, the museum has implemented new ticketing procedures for this special exhibition. For the run of the exhibition, the museum will have extended operating hours to create a safe viewing experience for a greater number of people. On Sundays the museum will open two hours earlier at 10 am. and stay open two hours earlier until 7 p.m. And on Thursdays, we will be open from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.