Today marks exactly 100 years since the Ocoee Voting Day Massacre. The Orange County Regional History Center (65 East Central Blvd Orlando FL) has spent three years researching and designing an exhibit about this horrific event.
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.
The following information is taken from the Orange County Regional History Center’s most recent exhibition, Yesterday, This Was Home: the Ocoee Massacre of 1920. For 100 years, the story of the Ocoee Massacre has gone largely untold. It has been subject to intentional obfuscation, lies, misunderstandings, and sensationalism. Memories and perspectives vary, and there are very few reliable source documents to confirm what is factual. If all hearsay, conjecture, conflicting, or contested information is removed, and you only include what most accounts mutually agree upon or what is included in primary source documents, the story is only a few paragraphs long. Though it is missing much nuance and details, this is what can be factually said.
On November 2, 1920, Moses Norman, a Black labor broker, attempted to exercise his legal right to vote in Ocoee, Florida. He was turned away and not allowed to cast his ballot. Later, a group of armed white men came to the home of Norman’s friend, July Perry, another Black labor broker in Ocoee, and violence ensued. Shots rang out and fires were started. Black residents were forced to flee from their homes.
Badly injured by bullet wounds, July Perry was captured by some of the armed men and taken into custody. After receiving medical attention, he was left in a cell at the Orange County Jail in downtown Orlando. According to a State of Florida Coroner’s Inquest that took place on November 3 and 4, 1920, an unidentified white mob overpowered the jailer, taking Perry from his cell.
The lynch mob brutalized Perry, and by November 3, had hanged his body in public view. His body was later moved to Greenwood Cemetery and buried. Moses Norman fled; he was eventually recorded living in New York City. Two men from the white mob were shot and killed, Leo Borgard and Elmer McDaniels, for which Carey Hand Undertaker’s Memorandum exist. Able-bodied ex-servicemen were called from across the region to come to Ocoee and create a perimeter to make sure the event did not continue, also blocking Black residents from returning to their homes. An unknown number of Black people were killed that night and others injured. Three unidentified Black individuals were recorded as being buried in one grave in a Carey Hand Undertaker’s Memorandum.
That night, many Black residents fled Ocoee, never to return. Some stayed but were eventually driven out by the terror of that night as well as subsequent violence over the following years, including dynamite being thrown into their homes and individuals being beaten and threatened. After 1926, there would not be another recorded Black person to reside or own land for any length of time in Ocoee until at least the mid- to late-1970s.
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.
On the day I went in to sketch, only one couple was in the exhibit space at the same time as me. There as some hand sanitizer at the beginning of the exhibit and I went back to use it each time I used any of the interactive displays.
At the end of the exhibit you can see the animated oral histories I worked on. The screen needs to be touched to play each animated short so be sure to sanitize your hands after you watch. I am glad I went this in an exhibit which is so timely. Today people marching to vote in North Carolina were pepper sprayed and arrested. This isn’t quite as bad as the Ocoee massacre but voter suppression is not a thing of the past.